The Winter Empire
by Freakdogsflare
Summary: House Stark will rise, and turn the North into a great and powerful Empire, a Winter Empire. (Chapter one reposted, hope you like it.)
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

 **Hey everyone, I know I have not posted in awhile, but I felt my stories lacked a lot of things, one of which was proper grammar, but after taking many writing classes, and writing down many essays, and stories, I hope that I have become a much better writer. I took your criticism into account, but I felt I had to keep some of the Original.**

Brandon the Builder, when he built the Wall using the Giants and the Children of the Forest, he not only did not allow those who helped build it to stay in the North to create their own houses, but he also allowed the Wildlings who otherwise would have been trapped beyond it to come south of it as well, knowing full well what lay beyond the Wall, and that it was not safe for any man, woman, or child, no matter how hard and tough the environment made them. Those who came from beyond the wall, would swear allegiance to House Stark, and would create their own houses, and in total of the 100,000 men and women that came south, of those 90 new houses were created for the different clans of the Wildlings, and the chief amongst those were the Giants who would erect a castle near Long Lake and call it Longdale, but what shocked people the most was not the Giants, but the 200 mammoths they brought with them, the Thenns who created Greenhill hold, Giants bane (Clad borough), Dalba (Doran Hill), and Redbeard (Raebershire). These were amongst some of the many houses that became part of the North.

On top of building the Wall, and Winterfell, Brandon also built two canals, one going from the Fever River into the bite, going right through Moat Cailin, this one you had to pay a toll to get through it, there was no way for a ship, or even a row boat, to get through because there were three gates, that had to be opened, one gate on the Western and Eastern side of the castle, and another in the middle, and on top of that there were chains that could be raised to prevent any invading force from entering from the West and East, and the mechanism that controlled it were in two places, one on each side in chain towers, then those chains went from their into Moat Cailin, but to take out the Chain you had to take out both places in order to do so, and the other canal went up the White Knife to Castle Cerwyn where there was another set of Chain towers, that ere then connected to the Chain mechanism inside Castle Cerwyn, and the same for these chains as were the ones at the Moat, it then turned in the Wolfswood exiting out into Blazewater Bay, and because of this Castle Cerwyn would grow so much that it would become a heavily fortified city, but there was no fortress at the other end, and to prevent any invading force from taking advantage of this Brandon erected a new castle, and named it after his first born Torrhen, calling it Torrhen's Square, and like Castle Cerwyn it had the chain system that was becoming apparent throughout the entire Canal system, and like its brothers on the other side of this Canal it would become so rich through trade, and tolls, that it too would grow into a very successful Fortified city, and through these Castles successes Winterfell would become the Largest City in all of the North, so large that one could spend their entire lifetime in it, and not see every nook and cranny Winterfell had to offer. These two Canals would be called the Winter Canal and the Moat Canal.

However, Brandon saw a weakness in the Canal system, for he noticed there was only one castle in the Moat Canal, so he erected two castles that would be on the West and East coast of the Moat Canal, and they like the Moat would have the gate and the chain system, these two castles, Brandon could not trust to any mere Bannerman, so he gave them to his youngest brother and son, the Castle on the West coast would be called **River Fortress** , for it was almost as if it had been built on the water, but in actuality it had two sides to itself, but instead of a bridge, it had locks that were created using magic of the children of the Forest, and the same goes for the castle on the other side which was named **Salt Fortress** for that part of the canal exited through the Saltspear, that then turned into the Fever River, that in turn exited out into the Bite, and the names of the future house that would call this castles home were the Riverstarks, and the Saltstarks respectively.

But, those were not the only things he had constructed in his lifetime, for he had surveyed all of the North to try to find anything of value or worth that might give him an edge over his bitter rivals in the Westerlands, and what he found were diamonds and gems in the mountains, and as such he sent men to mine them, and said miners built their own fortified little town, that would eventually become a fortified city, the second largest in the North, second only to Winterfell, and this town was called Diamond Head, and it would become the seat of House Silverlow, due to the massive amounts of silver and gold they got through selling the diamonds and gems they had mined throughout all of Essos, and Westeros, and on top of this he also had the constructional plans in motion for an Aqueduct that would go through the wall from the land of winter collecting snow through a mechanism that the Children of the Forest helped design and would in turn help build and said snow would then travel at a gradual declining slope to the wall where the only hole was just large enough for water to get through, but not even a child could get through it, even if they could climb the five hundred feet it would take to reach it, and because it, like the wall was built by Giants and Children of the Forest it too had magic, and the hole where it went through the wall had magic in it, so that as long as the Aqueduct and the Wall stood, nothing dead could pass through it.

Unfortunately, the Wall, Winterfell, the Canal, the Fortress, Aqueducts, and many others would not be completed before Brandon died, but before that happened he had written down everything he had planned to do, and build, and one of these was a special type of steel that the Children of the Forest knew how to make which was called Crucible Steel and to make it was a long and arduous process, that required skill and determination to make.

(XXXXXX)

To do so you had to first use Iron, and Cast Iron into a Crucible, which is a Ceramic container in which metals or other materials may be melted, it was extremely easy for the Northerners to make, and they used it in almost everything, then they put direwolf bone, from already dead those that were already dead, into it, and this would give them their source of Carbon, Sand, and glass were added so as to help clean away the slag, or impurities in the metal, and to allow the carbon to be absorbed that much more, then you top the crucible and seal any cracks with clay, to prevent anymore carbon from getting into the crucible, because you already have a set amount, and you do not want more to be added, then that crucible is put into what is known as an oven, made of clay and brick, then you add charcoal until it is to the top of the oven, then when that is done, you add more clay, and bricks until you have completely sealed it at the top, but it is vented at the sides, the oven traps more heat than any other in Westeros or Essos, and while you heat it up with bellows the Children of the Forest imbue it with Magic, so that it can kill anything that is dead, even the White Walkers, and once the bellows have heated up the fire providing more oxygen, and this would help it reach 3000 degrees Fahrenheit, the crucial temperature in which the slag is melted away from the metal, and after five exhausting hours of heating they tear apart the bricks carefully, so that they may be used in the future, until they reach where the original oven is, grab the crucible, and to get the steel ingot they break the crucible, and hopefully all the slag has been absorbed by the Crucible where you have created a slag free steel, but to forge into a blade you must be extremely careful, because if you aren't, it will crack, and you will have to start the process all over again, so only the best blacksmiths loyal to house Stark are able to make it, it takes eight hours to forge the ingot into a bar, in which it then can be forged into an even longer bar, and only afterwards can you start to make it into a blade, which takes an additional eleven hours to do so, and depending on its purpose and what the Northerners did in combat which was a combination of stabbing, slashing, and cutting very similar to that of the Romans and knights, which required a point just sharp enough for said purpose, and the blade would be wider than a pure thrusting weapon, but skinnier than a pure slashing weapon. The actual handle of the blade was made of Ironwood, and the cross guard was made of the same Crucible Steel, but with a direwolf carved into said steel, and the pommel was also crucible steel melted into the blade to prevent the hilt from falling off. The metal was used in all weapons, and even buildings to decorate them, as well as to strengthen the battlements. Brandon also wrote all he knew about the children of the Forest, the others, the white walkers in books, and everything he wanted to do with the North including making a standing army, and all of the things he had planned would make the North Stronger and Richer.

With the death of Brandon, the Builder, all of those loyal to him mourned, even his enemies mourned his death, for they knew that without him the North would not be as great, and have so many building projects. And because of the many projects of the Builder, the population of the North grew, such that at this time it did not matter if the North was so cold, but what mattered was the amount of work to be done, the money one could make.

Torrhen Stark, his eldest son who had ambitions, ones that would make House Stark the rulers of the North, and he knew the perfect way to do it, which was to create a standing army, one whose allegiance was solely to House Stark, and the North, and the organization of that would be legions, which would be about 6,000 men, the makeup of that is 2100 sword infantry, 1100 pikemen, 1100 spearmen, 700 cavalry, 800 artillery men controlling Trebuchets, Heavy Onagers, Ballista, and Scorpios, along with 200 archers, making this army would take time, and he estimated that the training of it would take at least ten years to train 36,000 troops, and 6,000 would be an elite unite could the Wolf Guard, these men were the second sons of lords, bastards, farmers, anyone who was good with a weapon could be in this elite unit, but it took ten years to train them, and there was a 90% drop rate in that time. He hoped that it would be enough to take the rest of the Northern kings and add them into the fold one by one.

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Ten years later:

In the time spent training, the Starks have amassed an army of 36,000 men, and with them was an additional 100 mammoths and 200 giants, this army would help Torrhen take the North, and his first target was the Barrow Kings, they would be the first to enter into the fold.

There were many battles in the war against the barrow kings, but the most significant was the battle of Barrowtown, where Torrhen was outnumbered two to one by the opposing force, but he had chosen a narrow front that would give him an advantage with the forests behind, to the right, and left. He was up against 50,000 men, but by choosing the area he did, the enemy could only send out 36,000 men at a time, and so when the enemy moved in Torrhen commanded "Once they come into range, fire the artillery." When that happened once the enemy was in range, all hell broke loose, and within 25 minutes, out of the 36,000 men sent, 16,000 were killed, but once they got close to the range of the archers, "Hold fire on the artillery, and commence the archer and javelin fire." With that all of the troops who were not archers threw one of the two javelins they had, piercing anyone in their path, and those who had shields found that they had to abandon them, for the Javelins were designed that once they were used, you could do so again, and any shields were useless. However the true killing would be up close, and once the enemy got to the first line of the shield wall they found that they could not break it, they were either punctured by pikes or if they were able to get to the shields they were shot at in the eyes and face by archers, and one soldier even remembers a man being shot in the eye by an arrow right in front of him, and all around him soldiers were dropping left and right either through pikes or archers, and within ten minutes of the 16,000 men, only ten were able to escape, then the next wave came, and there was an order "Rotate!" The entire Stark line moved as one, the front ranks going to the back, and the next rank moving up to take their place, and then the same thing happened all over again, and before the Barrow king knew it, the entire stark line was advancing cutting and killing anyone in their path, but they had to be careful not to trip over the dead that had been mounting up, it was over.

The Barrow king had no choice but to surrender. He had used everything in this attack, he had nothing, and he only hoped that the Winter King would fight one on one, to see if he would die or live. He challenged Torrhen to a duel, and Torrhen accepted. They fought with each other and when he struck the King's blade, his broke like a twig. He bent to his knees, and said "Please if anyone else is to die, please have it be me, these people are innocent. With that Torrhen replied "Renounce your crown, and proclaim me your King in the North, and only then I might spare you!" With that the Barrow king bent the knee, giving up his crown, when Torrhen took the crown he ordered it to be taken to Winterfell, and put on a wall.

With that Torrhen marched through the former lands of Barrow kings, and saw what he could do, to make it even better, and so he began a ten-year campaign to take the entire North, He took the Three sisters, the Neck, the Lonely Hills, Wolfswood, but before he could take the rest of the North he was killed on the battlefield, his son Rickard was proclaimed King in the North by the soldiers, but he marched to Winterfell, so the other lords and smallfolk could swear fealty to the new king. However, like Brandon, Torrhen had written down everything he had learned, and taught his son, and so continued the Kings of Winter, and the start of the Winter Empire

It had begun, and nothing could be done to stop it, but only time would tell if the Kings of Winter and their Direwolf companions would be able to stop all threats, or if Dragons would take it away, but one thing was certain the Starks were proving themselves.

 **Thank you, guys, please Read and Review, criticism is welcome and much appreciated, and the next chapter will be up as soon as possible, until next time Freakdogsflare out.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter I

 **I would really like to thank you guys for reviewing the last chapter, and though I will take some of your suggestions into account, I will try to make it my own, but without further ado, here is the next chapter, and I hope you enjoy.**

Like Torrhen, Rickard had ambitions to take the rest of the North, but not only this, but he also thought of any outside threats to his empire, so the first thing he did was to increase the defenses around the Neck, which included a Wall, along the Southern Border with only one three gates, one that would be in the middle where he would build a Northern Road that go throughout his entire Empire and would pass through the Moat, going through the only solid piece of ground in the Neck and eventually going a couple of miles south of the Wall, but in the North it had twists, and turns that were mostly made up of bricks, and mortars, these roads even had signs to direct those travelling in the right direction to a particular castle, but that was not all, at all the bridges, it had a sign about how many men, horses, artillery pieces it could have on the bridge at one time.

Another thing he did was to improve the armor for all of the men, and there were two main types of armor that were both plate armor, but depending on the season they were meant for, would have different levels of insulation on them. The Spring and Summer armor would be black with a grey direwolf on the chest, the shoulders, and all of the infantrymen wore a black cloak with a wolf fur on the top, and to hold it in place was two direwolf head clamps, the archers, and the artillery men had cloaks, but they did not have the wolf fur on it, and for the helmet, they wore the top half of a direwolf head, each legion carried the direwolf with a number to symbolize which legion it was, most of the legions were just called wolf legions, but the elite guards, or wolf guards as they were most commonly known as wore the same armor, but instead had a grey direwolf head with a grey crown to symbolize they were the guard, and the direwolf head the carried with them, also shared this symbol, and on their heads they wore the top of a direwolf head, with a crown on the top, the king and the royal family did the same, but to tell the difference the king wore gold direwolves in places of grey, and had a gold direwolf helm with a crown on it, and the princes, and princesses, yes women did fight, the Starks did not discriminate, had a grey direwolf, but with a gold crown. The winter and fall armor was the same, except it was white armor with the respective direwolves on it, and because it was designed around the Northern Winter it had more fur inside the armor than the others, for added insulation.

The North had two different types of legions, there were the Wolf Legions, and the Wolf Auxiliary, both had the same armor, and weaponry, but the Wolf Auxiliary were reservists, only serving part time, and full time during war, to protect the lands of Winter, while the Wolf Legions were away.

The spearmen, and pikemen were armed with a spear and pike as their primary weapon, and they had a rectangular shield that was curved to protect the body(sort of like a Roman shield), and it as well was black with a grey direwolf on it, as well as it had a cut out, where said soldier could rest the spear, or pike on their shield, rather than having to hold it up, and from there using it to stab into their opponents, but as a secondary weapon they had a two foot sword, called a Gladii, and this was mostly used for thrusting, but the primary was the pike, which was sixteen feet long, or a spear which was eight feet long, the swordsmen, had a diamond shaped shield that was also black, and had a grey direwolf on it, their secondary weapon was also a Gladii, but their primary was a 40" bastard sword, so that if they lost the shield they could use both hands to deliver more powerful blows, or they could do dual wielding with the Gladii in the other hand, the Archers did not have shields, but for a primary weapon they carried a recurved bow, that had a lot of Tension in the string that made it harder to pull it, but in the end it had a longer range, and the arrow moved faster because of it, as well as they carried a little 9 inch knife in case it got into close hand fighting, but for this purpose the Northerners did put little blades on the sides of the bows, so as to allow for killer blows to be hit with it, the artillery men, did carry a Gladii and a knife, along with a shield, when they were operating the artillery they would put the shield on their back, so as to easily grab it, in case an enemy suddenly came from behind, but for the most part there main purpose was to man the equipment they were assigned to.

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For ten years the Starks grew, and within those ten years their army of 36,000 grew to 240,000 men in their Wolf Legions, with an additional 120,000 men in the Wolf Auxiliary, this was in part due to the influx in population the North was experiencing due to amount of wealth, building, and farming they had perfected, not in crops, but with cattle, where the Reach were the croppers of Westeros, the North were the Butchers, the Straks goal of having 300,000 men in their Legions had been surpassed, and now they were looking to conquer the rest of the North, but they would do so, with only 60,000 men, because they did not want the other houses to know their full strength. The next kings to fall to the Starks were the Red Kings of House Bolton, Rickard left his wife, and four sons along with two daughters to lead 60,000 men to attack the Boltons, and in the first battle, a battle that would be known as the battle of the Lonely Hills, where 60,000 stark men were ambushed by, 20,000 Boltons.

The men were marching along, the scouts had been sent ahead of the column to make sure we were not ambushed, but unfortunately for them, by the time we got to them, the had already been flayed.

"All men form up, and prepare for anything, and remember you are Stark men, and no matter what you will stand your ground!" With that the Legionaries, went into a shield wall, with the horses going onto the sides to attack the enemy on the sides and rear, and out of the forest came 20,000 Boltons, 10,000 on the right, and 10,000 on the left, and from there it was just a slaughterfest, men dying left and right, but because of the training and experience of the Stark Men, and after 20 minutes of a stalemate, the Starks were finally able to push through, and start advancing, the Boltons could do nothing as the Starks did so, and did their normal routine, of rotating men, and advancing while doing so, with each block of the shield, the Starks stabbed with their weapons right through the belly of their enemy, and up, into their lungs and heart, that is for those that had swords, for the others, they just stabbed where they could, and some even lifted the Bolton men up off the ground, and into the air, forcing their opponent deeper into the pole of said weapon and then dropping them, forcing them off with a big gaping hole in their stomach.

After that ambush, the Starks would again meet the Boltons, this time in a fixed battle, and the Boltons were outnumbered 2-1, but they were not hoping for victory, only trying to delay the Starks to reach the Dreadfort, so as to give the defenders more time to shore up the defenses, for when the Starks did lay siege to it. The Stark first started their artillery barrage, and while they were doing that, half the army advanced, no use in tiring your men, when you can just win with half of your force, so when they got close enough, the artillery stopped, and within that time of the 30,000 that the Boltons had, only 15,000 were left, and so the Starks attacked from the front with their pikes, while they attacked the left and right sides with their spears and swords, while their cavalry attacked any Boltons who tried to escape. In the midst of all of this Rickard Stark, and Ramsay Bolton started to fight each other. "You and the other Boltons will die, unless you bend the knee right now!" Rickard ordered. "I will never bow to you and your kind, for I want my house to rule the North not the Starks." With that they began fighting each other with Rickard blocking a slash from Ramsay with his shield, and he then stabs back, but Ramsay blocks with his shield. They slash, stab, block, each one trying to get past the others defence and it is Rickard who is able to stab Ramsay in the knee, and Ramsay tries to slash at him, but Rickard blocks with his shield, and throws Ramsay over his shoulders, he then turns around and kicks Ramsay's shield away from him, he then sheathes his sword, and approaches Ramsay, and Ramsay tries to attack him, but Rickard blocks it with his shield, and he knocks his sword out of his hands, and grabs it in mid air, and he is about to stab Ramsay when one of the Bolton soldiers throws a spear that hits him in the shoulder, and this forces Rickard to his knees, but unfortunately before another Bolton could throw another spear, one of the Stark men kill all the Bolton about to attack his king, and with that Rickard breaks the Spear to where it is just a six inch stake in his shoulder, he then approaches Ramsay, raises his sword, and stabs him through the neck, and with a simple twist rips Ramsay's head off, and holds it in the air for all the Boltons to see.

When the Boltons see their king's head, they all start surrendering, but the Starks still killed them all because they were taught to show no mercy, and take no prisoners, so those who were taken could not escape, and go back to the enemy to reinforce their forces. The Starks, had the last 100 men surrounded, they tried to surrender but the Stark just kept on poking them with pikes, spears and swords, left and right, one Bolton man got stabbed thirty times, before being consumed by blood loss, but shortly there after all Boltons were dead, and those were not would soon join their brethren, for the Starks would come along to check you, and check to see if you were dead or not, if you were then you would feel nothing, but if you were not, then you would feel, a spear, or sword being driven into your chest, or neck, and sometimes they would even use their feet to move your head and stab you in the skull. One Bolton even yelled "Please?!" But the Starks killed all, with no remorse, and afterwards they shared a couple of drinks and shared how many flayed men they killed.

With that, Rickard, only had the Dreadfort to take, but he would be doing it alone, for his eldest son, Theon would be joining his campaign against the Boltons, but when his son got there, all he saw was his father being cared for by healers.

"What happened father?" Theon asked, worried.

"Oh, I was fighting the Bolton king, and when I had him disarmed, one of his men threw a spear right through my shoulder." Rickard replies non-worriedly.

"Don't let mother hear you with that tone, after your injury." "Your mother worries too much about my safety." After saying this a very heavily pregnant Alys Dustin, who was married to Rickard after his father had taken over the Lands of the former Barrow kings, came walking in and "How dare you complain to me about worrying too much, I love you, and yes, I am going to worry about my husband if he gets wounded in battle, what proper wife wouldn't!"

Rickard immediately went wide eyed, not expecting his wife to be here, and he asks nervously "W-w-what are you doing here sweetie?"

"DON'T SWEETIE ME MISTER, I came with your son to see him off to go on his father's campaign and when I heard you had been injured, I came here, only to hear that you say I worry too much, well mister, you can just shove that huge macho attitude of yours up your ass, because I will have none of it."

"But-" "

NO BUTS!"

"Yes dear." With that Rickard immediately stopped talking, for there was only one person in the world he feared their wrath and it was the woman standing right in front of him.

With that Alys went to her husband to check his wounds, and when she was satisfied, with what she saw, she gave her husband a kiss on the cheek, and said "Look I worry that our child that I currently carry will not see their father, so please once you have dealt with the Boltons, please come home to us, alive?"

"I will, I promise."

"And watch over our son."

"I will, I promise." With that Alys leaves to return to Winterfell.

After a day's march, the Stark men prepare the artillery, and as he approached on his horse with his son Theon next to him.

Rickard ordered. "Release the prisoners!"

With that tens of thousands of bolton soldier heads are released landing in the Dreadfort, and some even landed in the hands of peasants who screamed, and threw them away, and one was even thrown near the feet of the now King of the Dreadfort Rogar Bolton, who looked down at the head, and gasped when he saw the head of his father Ramsay with his crown still on his head. After the release of the prisoners the Stark army let loose their actual rounds for their artillery which was a combination of flaming rounds, and giant boulders hitting the walls of the Dreadfort, and after a week of delivering three salvos every hour, part of the wall of the Dreadfort collapsed, as well as the gates on the West side of the castle, but they still continued for another week,and within that time the Starks were able to take out the Southern Walls, the Southern gates, and with that Rickard ordered. "Cease firing,"

All the artillery immediately stopped firing, , and when they did the Stark army advanced forward killing all who opposed them, which was not much, for most of the people were dead, buried by the rubble, and even though the Stark men were hardened veterans, some of the things they saw, which included children holding onto their mother's hands, while their heads were missing, another was a child had its head buried by rubble, and his blood, and brain matter were all over the ground, but what really got to them was a woman holding onto her baby, or what what was left of him, which was just his little foot, all the Starks looked on in sadness, some even throwing up, while others did what they could to help, but there was not much they could do, even Theon had a hard time looking at some of this thinking _how could someone deal with so much suffering, and we are supposed to rule over these people, what kind of people will they be towards us when we did this to their home._ The only one who showed no emotion was Rickard, who though he showed nothing, was still sad on the inside, and he had similar thoughts as his son.

With that the Starks entered the throne room where the now King Rogar was sitting on his throne, and standing next to him is his sister Bethany Bolton.

When Rickard saw him, "You and your people will bend the knee to House Stark, or I will kill every single person with the name Bolton, starting with your precious little sister standing next to you!" He demanded.

"You dare, to threaten me in my own keep?" Rogar asks.

"When my army outnumbers yours ten to one, and when your entire castle is all but destroyed, and under guard, yes I do." Rickard replies harshly.

"So be it, but let us do this the old way, your sword versus mine, whoever wins gets all lands of the other into their kingdom." Rogar replies.

"So be it." With that Rickard sees that Rogar does not have a shield, but he does have a 40" bastard sword, and Rickard grabs his 42" bastard sword, so he had a slight advantage when it came to the length of the sword. Rogar stabbed at Rickard who easily blocked it, and he responded in kind with a slash towards Rogar's head, who just dodged it in time to avoid being beheaded, and the fight continued with Rickard blocking, and stabbing, slashing, trying to do anything to get at his opponent, with Rogar doing the same, but whereas Rogar could not find any weakness in the Winter King's defense, the same could not be said for Rickard, for he had found a weakness in him and that was he tended to favor his right side, and so decided to start attacking more to his left, and hopefully he could break his defense, which after a few cuts, stabs, and slashes he was able to stab Rogar right in the thigh, barely missing any arteries that would cause the Red King to bleed out.

With that the Stark king pointed his sword to Rogar's neck, and ordered. "It is finished, have your soldiers stand down, and bend the knee to me proclaiming me as your king."

"I pledge myself to you as my king, but if I may ask, what do you intend to do with my family?"

Rickard thought for, but a moment, and when he had come to a decision he replied with "Your sister-"

"Bethany."

"Bethany will marry my eldest son Theon, here." With that he motioned for his son to step forward, when Theon did so. "You will help combine our houses, and in return you will send me 1,000 of your eldest children of each of your vassals, does not matter what rank they are in society, and in return, we will help rebuild Dreadfort to what it was before this siege occurred."

"So be it, and thank you." Rogar replied.

With that the lands of the former Red Kings were added to the lands of the Winter Kings, and for his actions Rickard had earned the respect of Rogar, for even though they were once enemies, once you cross swords with someone, you know that heart,and their worth. On top of that the children of his good brother, and their descendants would have Bolton blood, now you might ask yourself why Rickard would do this, but in his eyes and the rest of his family it was simple, the easiest way to get a former enemy who you have just conquered to be loyal to you in a much quicker fashion was to marry one of them into the conquerors' family.

Theon and Bethany would get married, but first was the long march back to Winterfell, where if all went well, the Starks and the Boltons were become family, and a new generation would be created.

After a month of marching, they arrived at the gates of Winterfell, and they were greeted by Theon's siblings, which included four brothers, and two sisters, and their names were Brandon, second oldest to Theon, the twins, Torrhen and Lyanna, Karlon, Brandon, the youngest brother to Theon, and finally Arya, and standing next to them was Alys Stark, with a bundle in her arms, and when she saw her son, and husband she immediately went over to them in greeting.

"Ahh, my two conquering heroes return." With that she kisses Rickard, who sees the bundle, and saw a little girl who was fast asleep.

"I have already named her Dacey."

"Isn't the father of the child supposed to have some say in the naming of his child."

"Yes, but we talked about it, and I told you that if it was a girl, I would get to name her, and if it was a boy you would get to name him."

"But-"

"No buts, besides, I see that you have brought some Bolton men with you."

"I felt that the best way to bring them into the fold was if they married our first-born son, that way it would be a quicker and more peaceful resolution than the other option we had."

"Which would have been?"

"Killing off the Bolton line, and giving one of our sons the Dreadfort, but that still is an option if and when they do rebel against us."

"So be it." With that the Starks went to the great hall, where the wedding feast would take place, but first they had to prepare for the actual wedding ceremony.

Bethany Bolton, who was more than nervous because of who her soon to be husband was, and what house he came from, but little did she know that in time they would become lovers that would be inseparable. She had her handmaidens help her put on a dress that was grey, with her house sigil on it, and like her Theon was putting his best set of doublets that he had, which were grey and white set with a black cloak that had the grey direwolf on it, that was supported by a wolf pelt that was attached to leather straps, he then went to the Godswood, and standing there beneath the heart tree, which is a weirwood tree, with a face carved onto it, was his Father Rickard Stark, and he waited there until his soon to be wife arrived with an entourage, of Bolton men and women, all of them with the flayed sigil, and there standing at the center of them was Bethany, in all of her glory, she went before him.

Rickard asked. "Here comes before the old gods?"

In reply Rogar Bolton replies. "Bethany of the House Bolton, a noble and trueborn woman, grown and fair, who comes to claim her?"

With that Theon steps forward, and replies. "I, Theon of the House Stark come claim her, for all that she is, and will be in the future."

With that they are wedded, and afterwards there is a huge feast in the great hall.

Theon and Bethany are sitting next to each other in the great hall, and Theon sees the look of apprehension in Bethany's face, and tells her

"There will be no bedding ceremony, I promise you."

"Thank you." With that Bethany was even more shocked than before, about his behavior, and knew that the Starks, no matter what, even though they killed prisoners, killed women and children in sieges if they got in the way, but even then they still had enough honor to protect their women from the embarrassment that the bedding ceremony brought with it.

With that Theon stands up, and says that his wife and himself will retire…

"There must be a bedding ceremony."

"There will not be a bedding ceremony, and any who try to touch my wife in such a manner, will be met with an end they justly deserve from my sword." For you see, unlike most houses, the Starks ordered their men, and women to be armed at a wedding, because even though they themselves might hold up to the guest right, not all houses are as honorable as them, when it comes to such things.

With that Theon and Bethany went to their room, with Theon carrying Bethany bridal style, after they had left the Great Hall, and when they got to their room, Theon put Bethany on the bed, and told her

"You do not have to do this, if you do not wish it?"

"I wish to do it, because I want to feel what it is like with the only man I will ever have sex with."

 **Warning Sexual Scene Ahead, You Have Been Warned:**

With that said, Bethany takes off her clothes, to show her husband in her full glory, and in response Theon started to feel little Theon get a little hard. With that Bethany stands up, and starts kissing Theon. He returns the kiss, and slips his tongue into her mouth, and she grabs his shirt, to which he raises his arms, and releases from the kiss, taking the shirt off of him, she then lowered herself and took his pants, and undergarments off, once that was done, she started to lick his parts, and when he was hard enough, he grabbed her, pushed her gently onto the bed, and lowered his lips to her parts, and started lick them, making her moan in ecstasy, and he continued to do this, until she was wet enough, he then looked at her, and in that look, she saw the silent message, and she prepared herself for the entrance, and the popping of her cherry. When she was wet enough he took his tool, and entered her trench, making her gasp in pain, to which he replies

"I am so sorry, I will try to go slow, until you get used to it."

At this moment she realizes that he really is trying to look out for here, and that he really cares for her wellbeing, and with that they continue to have sex well through the night, and little do they know, that she is now pregnant with Theon's first child, will it be a boy or girl.

 **End sex scene (I tried to keep it pg, so as not to offend anyone).**

 **Thank you for the reviews, and I am very sorry it took me so long to get the next chapter to you guys. Will try to get the next one to you sooner.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter II

 **Hey, Freakdogsflare here, I know it has been a while, but I have been busy with school, but I will try to get the next chapters up much sooner. Warning there will be some sexual slangs in this chapter, you have been warned...**

It was the morning after Theon and Bethany had gotten married, and after a night's worth of passion, they woke up in each other's arms, and Theon looks at his wife, he was already starting to fall in love with her, he could not quite explain it, and little did he know she was starting to fall for him, he removed the furs on their bed to put on his armor ad cloak, trying to be quiet, so as not to wake her up, but unfortunately that is exactly what he does, for she rolls over and starts eyeing him, but before he could get dressed, she got up, pulled the furs around her body, and walked to him.

"Where do you think you're going?" She asked kissing him.

After done kissing he replies. "I have to go to my father, and see what his plans are next? He told me that we were going to march to Last Hearth, and make the Umbers join the fold, for they have 7500 men, which would be a fine addition to the number of men we can call upon from our bannermen, the same as the Karstarks, Greystarks, the Boltons, and the only house that has more men is ourselves, but we intend to take their lands, and with the gods grace they will just surrender, and we will not have to lose any good men on both sides." Theon replied kissing her while groping her left breast with his left hand, and fingering her pussy with his right, Bethany moans, and he begins to kiss her, and push her back on the bed while kissing her, and Bethany puts her right hand on his cock, before she takes it, and pushes it inside her, and moans. "Oh, Theon, fuck me, please, you've probably already gotten me with child, but just in case you haven't please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, PPPLLLLEEEEEAAAASSEE, fill me with your wolf seed!" Bethany screamed.

"I would not be a Wolf if I refused the Lady." With that he rolls her over so that she is on her hands and knees, and like a wolf starts fucking her, they fuck like the Direwolf of his sigil, and she remembers cumming again and again, it was as if he was possessed by the gods themselves to make sure she got heavy with children. He finally cums inside, when they get their breath back, there is a knock at the door.

"My lord, Fang wants in." Guard tells Theon.

"Let him in." Theon orders.

"Who is-" Before Bethany can finish a big black Direwolf enters and she screams. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" She attempts to try to get away from it, but Theon holds her back stating "Easy my love, he will not hurt you, I swear by the old gods!" Theon tells her looking in her eyes, and when she looks at him she can see he is not telling her any lies, and as Fang approached her, and smelled her, he then laid his massive head on her lap, which took the entirety of it, and fell asleep. After a couple seconds hesitation she starts petting his head.

"He is not so bad." She states, as she is fratching Fang's ears, who was whining in pleasure from her doing so.

"Only to those he likes, those he sees as a threat, he will kill."

"That is good to know, and" Then she notices Theon getting up to go see his father. "Do you have to go, we were having so much fun?"

"Yes, and you are coming with me."

"What?"

"You are my wife, and the future Lady Stark, and Queen of our entire kingdom. I want your input, and your suggestions at my ear, and your council. You're a very smart woman, Bethany, and I want to hear what you have to say, and hear your ideas."

"By the old gods." She hugs him. "I love you."

Theon hugs her back, and states. "We better get going, we do not want to be late, I'll get a servant in here to draw up a bath." With that he goes to the door, opens it up and tells the guard to get a servant in the room, so as to draw up the baths, and to bring his black armor since it was spring, and to have on of the assistant blacksmiths to be ready to make crucible weapons and armor for Bethany, and he has a few ideas. With that the servant came, and poured hot water into a tub, and afterwards Theon had his wife take a bath first, because he knew that if he did something a little bit sexual with her in the bathtub, and as such they would not leave the quarters for the rest of the day, and that is one thing that they cannot have right at this moment in time, for they needed to reach his father, and he was not known for being patient. They were planning to conquer last hearth and the lands the Umber's had, however he hoped it did not come to that.

When both of them were done, they went to the throne room, but were surprised to find Rickard Umber standing there with his sons along with some men. Theon unsheathes his sword, and states. "What are these men doing here?"

Rickard Umber replies with. "I was just about to bend the knee, and offer my eldest son for your eldest sister!"

"Good plan, but we also must ask that my younger brother marries your daughter Lya Umber, and starts a new cadet branch called the Snowstarks, their keep will be Snowfall, and of one of your sons must foster here at Winterfell." Theon stated, while Rickard looked on, proud of his son, and knew that when he took over as Lord of Winterfell, and King in the North would do well in controlling the lords underneath them.

"Those terms are agreeable." With that the Umbers' bent the knee to House Stark, with no bloodshed. With that Rickard Umber, and his sons left the room, and when they did Rickard Stark approached his son, and stated. "You did well, my son, you will do well when the sun sets on my time, and will rise with you taking your rightful place on the Winter throne.

What many will ask is, why the Umbers' decided to bend the knee, maybe it was the fact they wanted to save the lives of their people, or maybe it was for a much more sinister reason, but the one thing that is known is the Umbers' become on of the most loyal bannerman of House Stark, but now there there was no war to prepare for, but that was all about to change.

(XXXX)

To the West a massive fleet of IronBorn longships, Dornish War Galleys, Storm War Galleys, and their reasoning for this invasion of the North was twofold, the Ironborn did not have much, and seeing the North had no Navy, and a lot of things to offer, was the perfect place for a raid, but they needed allies, and who better to do it than the ones that have lost most due to the two canals of the North, and those two kingdoms were the Stormlands, and Dorne. They had been preparing for five years.

While the North had been busy taking care of the Boltons, and the Umbers had joined the United North, but little did they know Northern spies had notified Rickard Stark, "The King in the North!" of the impending attack, and they started to prepare for the impending invasion, but he had no intention of using his full force against the invading armies.

They would attack with a force of 105,000 men, and 3,000 ships, most of them being longships and war galleys. It took them about three months to get ready for the invasion, but little did they know the North had prepared for them by having the Redwyne and Lannister fleet at Lannisport prepare to disembark, for they would would do so a day after the Ironborn and their allies had sailed towards the Northern coast, for the spies would contact the fleet, so as to entrap their fleet, while the North keeps the land force occupied. This is so the attackers have no way to escape, and hopefully this would be a lesson that would not soon be forgotten by the Stormlands, Dorne, and Ironborn to never invade the North.

The Ironborn and their allies set sail, and a day later the Lannister fleet along with the Redwyne allies set sail following them. When the Ironborn, Dornish, and Stormlander soldiers land with their full force of 105,000, and start marching, but however they are shocked to find 60,000 Northmen attacking their flanks with infantry and artillery along with archers, and within a minute 15,000 of 105,000 were dead, and the cavalry of the North hit the sides killing all in there path, and this was all before the main Stark infantry made their attack, and this was because they were trying to even the odds a little bit, by the time the infantry started to block, stab, block, stab, as was their usual routine, and one soldier stabbed an Ironborn with a spear, and using all the strength he had picked him up and threw him over his shoulder, the Ironborn and allies were down to 70,000, but that was quickly changing as time went on, and with this, the Starks started to shift their lines in such a way that they started to surround the Ironborn allied army on three sides, and seeing they were going to be destroyed the Ironborn ordered a "Full retreat." They had lost 50,000 men, and needed to leave before they lost even more men, they ran back to the Navy on the coast, but when they got there, all of their ships were either sunk, or in the process of sinking, and they saw Lannister and Reach men on the beach, about to attack them, they tried to turn back the way they came, but what they saw was Rickard Stark, Theon Stark, and all but 60 of the 60.000 men they had started with, in front of them, the Lannister and Reachmen commenced attack on their rear, and the Starks started to attack the front, and the Ironborn leader Theon Harren, looked around, and he knew he was going to lose, but if he was going to die, then he was going to take the Stark King with him, and looked around and realized Prince Mors Martell, and King Arlan Durrandan were dead, and their men were routing, along with his, as he saw Rickard Stark approaching him.

"Surrender now, and I might just let you and your men leave." With that he stabbed at Theon's stomach which was blocked.

"Never, if my men, and I die, then you're coming with me!" With that he sent a slash towards Rickard's head he blocked it, and he was about to reply when Theon's seconds responded "Sir, I don't know about you, but the men and I would like to live, and if that means betray you then we will gladly so to see our families again."

With that Theon replied with. "Uhrrg, you win this one Stark!" he replied angrily, and with that he and the remaining 20,000 men, 5,000 being IronBorn, 7,000 Stormlanders, and 8,000 Dornish men, and with that Rickard Stark faced towards Kevan Lannister and Edric Gardener said "Thank you for the assist, but I believe it is time to get back to our homes, but do not think about staying or invading my lands. Leave Now!"

"Alright, a thank you would suffice." Kevan Lannister stated.

"That's the best you'll get, and how do you think you would feel if the North had helped you!" Edric Gardener replies as he and Kevan start to load up the ships, and as they're doing this Rickard and Theon are thinking in their head of what they could do to make a Northern Navy since the North needed a Navy, because if this ever happened again, you cannot beat a Navy at sea with an Army. It took three days for the Lannisters and Gardeners as well as their men to load up the ships, and depart, and once they did the Stark army started the long march home.

"I am looking forward to getting home, and see Bethany." Theon stated.

"Correct me if I am wrong, but she is pregnant?" Rickard asked

"Yes, according to the maester, she got pregnant the night of our wedding, or within the coming days afterwards, but to be honest I do not know what I want, a boy, or a girl!?" Theon replies, with a bit of a confused tone, as well as a worried one.

"Take my advice, my son, the first child, or any other does not matter for you will love them all the same!" Robert stated, which reminded him to pass a law, that stated whoever was the first born, no matter what the sex of the child was, would be the one to inherit as the heir of the lands of the lords, or lady's they are born to.

"Yes, I will."

With that they continued on with marching at the head of an army, but it was not 60,000, for they had lost about 600 soldiers, and while Theon and Rickard rode at the head of it, Theon states. "I hate to be the one to tell the loved ones of those who have fallen."

"Good, because you are going to be the unlucky person to tell those families the bad news." Rickard ordered.

"At least we were able to bring their bodies back for proper burial, at least with that the families will be a little happier, but it still does not take away from the loss they had to deal with." Theon stated sadly. "I will do so, but we need to make plans for the North, it is only a matter of time before the other kingdoms think 'hey the North has so much, why not take it for ourselves.' We don't give other nations reasons not to attack, sell leather, Northern Steel, etc to the other Kingdoms." Theon declared.

"Hmm agreed, but first we need to start plans on a Navy, and I know exactly what materials we are going to use." Rickard told Theon.

"If I know what you're thinking, we are going to need to advise the Children of the Forest about cutting down Weirwood trees, and ask House Forrester to increase the amount of Ironwood production for use on naval warships." Theon stated.

"I have taught you well, perhaps too well, my young apprentice!" Rickard declared.

"Thank you master, I will agree, but we will not live long if we do not let the other houses of the North join our army, and to know our full strength, I understand the south, and maybe even the Boltons, but I a married to a Bolton, our children as well as our descendents will be Bolton kin, and you can say many things about them, but they will not hurt their own."

"Well, first I want you to go to the families, and give them our condolences, but afterwards I want you to get the Children, and bring them to the throne room to discuss what we have discussed, and while this is happening I want you to put together a list of what we can build to improve the Infrastructure of the North, as well as giving an order that requires that no matter what the sex of the child is, whoever the firstborn is, will be the heir." Rickard ordered.

"Well we need to improve the time it takes to travel, we need to construct new roads, aqueducts leading to every port, keep, castle, and city in the North, so they have access to water, shipyards, bridges, upgrade the canal system, upkeep all walls, castles, cities, ports, etc, build more markets, stores, towns, godswoods, grow more trees, sell Northern Steel, leather, and any armor made from said leather, furniture, or any armor made from our Northern Steel, we need to look into new building materials, and figure out how we are going to keep the roads clear of ice and snow, especially during the winter. As well as possible new books with binding, and I would like to start thinking about transferring all the books into new libraries of each house in the North, but the library of Winterfell will hold all history of House Stark, as well of the first men, we need all the lore of the Children of the Forest, as well as the long night, and even all history and lore of all the houses of the South, their eye and hair color, height, everything, and even what their region is known for." Theon stated.

"Basically you want us to have as large of a library as Oldtown-" Rickard started

"Larger" Theon interrupted.

"Larger, and put all the history of the houses, and their vassals in one location, written by Starks, ruled by Starks, why?" Rickard asked.

"The south uses maesters, and perhaps we could use the same thing, and it may not hurt to know what their weaknesses are, as well as it may be helpful to know what they are known for, if we want to trade with them, or maybe someday we may want to conquer them, we must know what materials are useful to us, and what can be used to our advantage." Theon replied.

What, you want to do the same thing as the South?" Rickard asked.

"Yes, it is a good idea, but with some improvements, but they could become even better, instead of using raven's, use eagles, instead of having maesters, have scholars, if we built schools, libraries, and teach everyone, not just the nobles how to read, write, science, math, physics, biology, architecture, and speech properly, and whatever else they may need to know, so as to become successful as scholars, or maybe they want to do something besides be a scholar they can specialize in one field." Theon replied.

"So be it, add schools to the list, all children, whether they be lowborn, trueborn, peasant, noble, royalty etcetera, shall learn at these schools, and each of these schools curriculum will be written by scholars of House Stark, they will have required classes, such as fighting with many weapons whether it be bow and arrow, crossbow, short sword, arming sword, bastard or long sword, great sword, spear, pike, reading writing, math, arithmetic, science, philosophy, engineering, architecture, biology, physics, and so on. When they are five they will be sent to school, each year will be more challenging than the rest, they will go to school from August to early July, and required schooling will end when they are eighteen, unless they are to join the Wolf Guard, in which case they will have will have their education transferred to the training camp of said Guard, but only after they have proven they can stand up against a member of the Wolf Guard, if they last more than two strikes of a weapon from them, then they themselves can join, otherwise their education will end when they reach eighteen, but if they so choose they can continue on with their education, but they shall be tested at intervals to determine whether they join the Wolf Legion or the Wolf Auxiliary, and if they pass the test, if they so choose they can enter after they have been tested against a Legionary and Auxiliary, if they hold on their own for more than 30 seconds they can join the Auxiliary, and if they last a minute they can join the legionaries. After they retire, from the Wolf Guard they will be given enough money to build their own city, and given a sigil to design, and they would become a major lord who was beneath none but House Stark, it was thought after serving as Kingsguard the least the Starks could do was grant them land, and lordship, they same for Wolf legionaries, and Wolf Auxiliaries, but they would be smaller lords, having their allegiance to much larger lords, in terms of status, like the Umbers, Karstarks, and Greystarks, for the Wolf Legion, and for the Wolf Auxiliaries they would have the position of being Knights with their own keep. Those who retired from the Wolf Guard could muster five-ten thousand soldiers during a time of war, Wolf Legion could muster two-three thousand men, and the Wolf Auxiliaries could muster five hundred-one thousand men, but they could choose when to retire, but they must retire at the age of sixty, for they are deemed too old at that age to fight effectively, and when they did so, their descendants would have the name they choose, and they themselves would forever have an oath as the bannermen of House Stark, and as such whenever called upon, they must answer."

It takes Rickard, and Theon another week to get to Winterfell, once there Theon went to his slightly pregnant wife, and kissed her deeply and passionately.

"I was worried, we were worried." She grabbed his hand, and planted it on her stomach.

"I am here, but the families of those who are not need to be told." Theon told her.

"Well go on, and when you come back maybe-" Bethany started

"I know what you're feeling, you and I need to help my dad make the North better, and to improve the way our people live, and that means meeting him in his solar, so as to go over said plans." Theon stated.

"Okay." Bethany sadly stated.

"After we're done, we can get as crazy as you would like." Theon stated seductively. With that Bethany wanted to grab her husband and fuck him right then and there, but she had to wait, her Theon was gone for almost a month, and she had to be patient. Theon went to each of the families to tell them their son or daughter was not coming home, but it was the last home that was the hardest.

He went to the door, and knocked with the body off far away, not so far where it will take awhile to get, but far enough away where the family could not see it. A woman in her late 30's answered the door.

"Hi, milady, are you Arya Wars?"

"Yes lord Stark."

"I am very sorry, but can you come with me." With that he walks her to the wagon about two minutes away, and when he got to it, and unveiled her husband's face.

"Is this your husband?"

"Y….Y….Yes!" She sobbed.

"I am so sorry for your loss, I fought side by side with him, and he was a good man." With that he hid his face, and told her "We are going to go through the proper processes of giving him a proper burial, and once that is done we will do so, and we will help you by giving you extra money, I know it is not much, but it is the least we can do, and I again my utmost apologies and condolences." Theon said trying to hold back tears.

Arya seeing this, replies with "It is okay to cry!"

"I know, and he was such a good man, he has saved my life so many times, I thought I would return the favor, but was not able to, by the time I got to him it was too late, but it was a quick death, he did not suffer." Theon cried.

With that he walked her back to her house, and told her. "If you need anything, do not be afraid to ask?"

With that he left with a much sadder demeanor, for when he saw Bethany, she could tell something was wrong, but said nothing, and they met with his father in his solar, in a meeting with Lora, leader of the Children of the Forest, to see if using Weirwood trees as the structure of their ships for their Navy, as well as for furniture.

"Yes you can do so, but you must plant more weirwood trees, and they must not cut down heart trees!"

"I was going to order 10 weirwood trees be planted for everyone cut, and they don't cut said trees for 500-" Rickard started.

"1,000 years." Lora interrupted.

"1,000 years, and we would enforce which tree and how many are cut down, and we will use as much of the tree for framing of ships as possible, but what we do not use will be put to other uses, such as the framing for new furniture, bows, anything we can do to use the whole tree, and not have it go to waste."

"Good, you may begin your grace, and we will help you in any way we can."

With that a mass order was put in place for the cutting of 100 weirwood trees, along with 1,000 ironwood trees, and designs were put into place for newer, and larger war galleys, cogs, or frigates, as the Northerners would come to call them, and longships with them being different as well, in the case of the war galleys, but they were larger, by a factor of three, and they used mostly said as their mode of transportation, but did have oars, they were 117.9 meter, overall length with the keel being 84.09 meters, and width however was not three times as wide, but it was two times wider than most, which was 7.64 meters, the masts were 48.24 meters tall for main masts, and 48.24 meters tall for foremost, and unlike most of the war galleys the mast were made with ironwood, and these trees could grow to be 7.62-12.192 meters tall, so to reach the height required, the builders would build the masts in sections using Northern Steel to hold these masts in place, and a type of glue made from heating animal connective tissue, and combined with steel rivets made it into a very strong, and very hard connection, and it was fire resistant, the cogs, or Frigates, square rigged ships would be the fastest instead of one mast, they made it have three, overall length was 93 meters, from its beam, or widest point of ship was 13.26 meters, the height of the masts were 60 meters feet tall for the foremast,67 meters tall for the mainmast, and 52.6 meters tall for the mizzenmast, they were the largest in the Northern fleet, but this was an advantage in the open ocean, for it had no equal, but that size was a bit of a hinderance in close quarters. The longships were 60 meters long, and 6 meters wide, these were the smallest ships of the Northern Navy with a crew of only 200 sailors, in comparison to the 300 of the war galleys, and 450 for the Frigates, they were mostly used in harbor, and tight spaces where their small size is an advantage to them, and like all ships of the Northern Navy, it had a battering ram, which was made of Northern Steel, the sails were made of cotton, and they were black, so as to hide them from being seen during the night. with a grey direwolf on it to signify from which fleet it was a part of, which the North got through trade, and like the sails, the ships were painted black, so as to hide them from being sighted by other ships at night, which could be used as an advantage for night attacks, and all the figureheads were direwolf's, made from Ironwood, with a corvus, which is a type a boarding device, but this one's top was that of a direwolf head that could hold a man as it was lowered during times of boarding. The North gave an order for 975 longships, 450 war galleys, and 600 frigates, to be built, in total 2,025 ships, and 600,000 sailors manning them. The North put them into production, and everything Rickard, and Theon talked about was put into effect, and with that the North, and house Stark was well on its way to putting itself on the map.

(XXXX)

Ten years have passed since the Ironborn, and their allies were defeated. Theon and Bethany have three children with a fourth on the way, they had two sons, and one precious little daughter, with the eldest being a son, and the youngest being a son, which meant their little princess was right in the middle. Their names were Jon, Lya, and Brandon, and if the scholars were to be believed they were about to have twins, and this was within a month of them coming into the world. The Northern Navy had been completed two years prior, and a new invention had been invented by House Stark called the paver layer, it took a team of six men, and wheels that organized, and laid pavers out on the ground perfectly, while the horses were led by two men to pull the machine slowly, the Children of the Forest then followed about a dozen yards, or so behind putting powerful incantations on the brick pavers, so as to prevent snow and ice from accumulating too much, and to prevent the bricks from any cracking, aging, or anything that might harm the bricks, and while this was happening the library of Winterfell was being constructed, the schools had incantations added, so that no invading army could enter, and if they tried, they would be turned to ash. Aqueduct passages were being added to the original, to all the castles, bridges were built over the canals to allow for quicker and more timely journeys, rather than having to go all the way around, more markets, stores, and towns were being built, and the North had gold to spare, they now had a new currency called the wolf, on one side had the sigil of House Stark, and on the other side had the founder of House Stark itself, Brandon the Builder, bronze which was in abundance in the North, silver and gold, also in abundance, if not through mines, then through trade, one silver wolf was worth ten bronze wolves, and ten silver wolves was worth one gold wolf, and the main reason as to why they had money, or gold to spare, was they were selling one quarter to one half of all Northern Steel produced, and they made furniture from the leather given to them by the peasants, which was more like bought from peasants, not taken, and the Starks used that leather, along with Weirwood trees, and ironwood trees left over from their use in Naval ship production to build beds, couches, chairs, tables, etc. There was so much being built that people from the Iron Island, and the other six kingdoms, as well as Essos migrated to the North, and now the North had a population of nearly ten million with one million being in Winterfell alone, more women and men from all houses joined the Northern military, it was now required in times of war, if determined by House Stark, each house that had kneeled to House Stark had to send soldiers to serve in the Navy or Army, and the names of those sent would be drawn from a lot, and be given a branch for which they were drafted in, but in times of peace the military was voluntary, and by this time the North had 720,000 soldiers in the army, and 2,025 ships along with 600,000 sailors, but that would soon change for an additional 180,000 sailors was set to join the Navy, and as such the North ordered the construction of more ships to be built, each of those who joined saw it as an opportunity, and a duty to serve in the military, and they knew it was only a matter of time before someone else tried to invade the North, but the North still refused to use its full force, but instead of using 60,000 men they started to use 120,000 men to attack, and this was so that the enemy would not know the full strength of the North, and because of the increase in sailors, and that order of more ships included 300 longships, 100 frigates, and 250 war galleys at a cost of 650,000 gold wolves making the Northern Navy cost 2,025,000 gold wolves, and making the Navy size of 2,675 ships, and the cost to equip one soldier was approximately 4,500 gold wolves to up keep yearly, and with an average annual income of 10 million gold wolves, 100 million silver wolves, and 1 billion bronze wolves, but that could be more or less, depending on the season, the crops they used the most was cash crops, but they did have each family in the North to produce enough food to last them in even the longest of winters, usually about ten to twenty years worth of grain/food would be stored in the food vaults of the keeps, cities, ports, and castles of the North, including Winterfell, and the city in which is shared walls with Wintercity, House Stark had more than enough money to upkeep its military, and still have some left over to use in building projects that may happen in the future, or to use for the upkeep of the many structures that stand in the North. It also allowed the North to put artillery pieces on their ships, most specifically the ballista, they had put four on the Frigates, three on the War galleys, and two on the longships.

Theon and Bethany were summoned to the Throne Room, and when they got there they discovered Rickard Stark had died in his sleep at the age of 75 years, they saw Lora was waiting, with two crowns, one was an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with runes of the first men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes in the shape of longswords, which immediately gave away its identity as the Winter Crown, and the other was of a similar design, but unlike the nine black iron spikes of the Winter Crown, this one was made of bronze, and had no iron spikes coming out of it, but it did have runes of the first men in it, and on either side of the throne room on their knees were the lords of the North, and the Winter throne was a simple yet intricately designed chair made of mostly ironwood, and on it was three grey direwolves made of Northern Steel was inlaid into the throne wolf, and on the armrests were carved Direwolves into it, and on the top of it are three Direwolf heads carved, and jutting upwards above the actual person sitting on said chair. Theon walked up to the throne, and knelt before Lora, and she states. "Today, we see the dawn of a new age, a new king and queen, may they be long and prosperous." With that said, she put the winter crown on Theon's head, and when that was done, he stood, and turned to his people, who knelt, yelling "The king in the North" With their swords struck into the ground, before standing up, and chanting "The king in the North!" This is repeated over and over again, until Theon tells them to be silent, and ordered "My lords, there is much work to be done, I have not forgotten what the Ironborn had attempted to do, so to prevent them from ever invading us ever again, we are going to invade them, and add them to the lands of Winter, but they have taken over the Riverlands, and so we are going to add the Riverlands to our kingdom, and so why not take the Vale while we are at it."

"Your grace, do you want us to prepare for the invasion."

"Yes, but it will take ten years to do so, well you heard me, go and prepare." With that he dismisses his lords, and sits on his new throne, and next to him he saw Bethany sat in her own throne, which was the very same, and as she did so, she told him. "So, how do you want to do this, without you father, you are on your own."

"No I am not, I have you, and I have the council of my lords to consider." Theon stated.

"So, what do we do now?" Bethany asked.

"For now we prepare, and ready for the arrival of our new born." Theon stated.

"The plan is to send the Navy to take the Ironborn, an amphibious assault supported by the 100 frigates of the Northern Navy, while they had no transport ships to escort, for the invasion force would be the men on the Naval ships, and another section of the army to take on the Riverlands, with 60,000 men attacking it, while another 60,000 take the Vale, and once that was done, 12,000 of the army stayed, while the other 48,000 marched onto Harrenhal to join their brethren there, once there they would take it, it will become our Southern capital to help control the population."

So, with that House Stark, and the North prepared

(XXXX)

Ten years have passed since Theon had begun putting into fruition the plan to take to the two of the seven kingdoms, and to take the Iron islands, and he finally was ready to do so, and so with the ships attacking the Ironborn from the Salt Fortress, the first thing they did was to surround the Islands and lay siege to it, this siege was led by Jon, while the invasion of the Vale was led by Lya, she would 100 men to infiltrate the Eyrie, while also having an invasion force of 42,000 soldiers, to take the Coastal castles of the Vale, while her younger brother led an army of 18,000 soldiers, and lastly the Riverland invasion was led by Theon Stark, and the first thing they did in the Iron Islands was destroy the Iron fleet, so they took away the major advantage of them, for the Ironborn were known for their Navy, that was their first, and only effective defense, for they were not known for their ability to fight on land, but the sea, that is where they thrive, so if you take out their Navy, you take out their one advantage, and the one thing they are good at, so they were forced to just sit there as they were bombarded by the ballista that were on the Northern ships, and as this was happening, on the island of Pyke were the Greyjoys, and on the balcony just outside her room was Yara Greyjoy, who was so surprised to see ships with the Stark Direwolf, and the Iron Fleet on fire, and balls of fire passing by her, and some even over her head hitting the balcony doors, and finally landing on her bed, she walked away from the balcony with an angry face, and told her second. "Launch the ships!"

"We cannot my lady, they have destroyed them, and those that are not destroyed are either trapped, or on fire!" He replies.

With that a ship which was trapped, and on fire rammed into a wrecked longship, you could hear the screams, as men, and women were burned alive, the creak and crack of wood, and cloth being burned, and in the chaos one Northern ship by the name of Jon's Fury commanded by prince Jon himself slammed against an Ironborn ship, they hit her on the port side going with the wind, and rows, the ship was going ten knots with the rows, plus an additional 15 knots with the sails, so 25 knots in all, and when they hit the Ironborn ship, they did so with such force that it split the ship in half, and was sunk with that a passageway was created to land on the island of Pyke, 75 frigates, dropped anchor far enough away to stay safe, but close enough to launch longboats, where 400 of the crewmembers would go ashore to take the Islands, while the other 25 frigates, which were escorting the transport ships, continued to bombard Pyke until the signal was given to stop, and that would happen once Jon had taken it, he led 30,000 men, and he led them across the island to the gates, they were not seen, and if they were, that was the last thing they would see, for they were quickly taken out, either by a bow, or a firing death ball, and by the time the Greyjoys had learned the Starks were at the gates, it was already too late, for they were already through with Jon at the lead, and one of the Ironborn attacked, and he blocked with his shield, and stabbed through the man's throat.

"Signal the fleet to stop firing in our area." Jon ordered.

"My prince. Our orders were to only send the signal once we have taken Pyke." Jon Caldwin responded respectfully.

"So be it, send our men onward, and make sure you take every Greyjoy alive, kill the men, but keep the children, and women alive." Jon ordered.

""Of course, my prince." Lon Caldwin responded.

With that the siege continued for another hour at most, it was mostly scarce fighting, here and there, but Yara met Jon in battle, she used her axe. Her men were dead, but she had to fight even if it meant death, and she saw the leader killing one of her men by slicing their head off, and with a scream she attacks.

"My Prince look out!" A shout goes out, and Jon turns, and raises his shield just in time to block the Axe, but unfortunately for Yara her axe gets stuck, and Jon is able to spin, get the axe out of her hands, and hits her in the head with the pommel of his sword knocking her unconscious.

When she comes to a couple of hours later, she was on board a ship in front of Prince Jon who sat at the end of the ship on a throne, and she looked around to notice some of her people along with their children, and when she noticed that she asked. "What is this?"

"This is where you bend the knee, and marry a member of House Stark, or you will watch every single one of these people get beheaded, as Pyke is burned to the ground, and I take you, and make you a whore at Winterfell." Jon ordered.

With that Yara was shocked, and she had a choice, and to protect her people she replied. "Alright, I'll do it!"

"Well, we'll have a marriage tonight on the deck, and when you get to your husband's home you will get married again in the Godswood." Jon told her.

"Who will I marry?" she asked.

"Me, of course!" Jon answered.

"But….!"

"Join me in my cabin!" Jon interrupted.

With that he led Yara to his cabin, the cabin was 20 feet long by 40 feet wide, and Yara asks. "Why must I marry you?"

"The only way I know the Ironborn will bend the knee to the North, is if the rulers of the North marries the living rulers of the Iron Islands." Jon replies.

"Living?" Yara asked, confused.

"We intend to kill King Harren, but you you know you will never be able to tell them about it."

With that they got ready, and got married on the deck, but with that they brought a small heart tree to be married in front of, but they also did so in front of the drowned god, so as to please the Ironborn, or at least as much as they could considering they had just burned their homes, and the Starks did not care what god, or gods you worshipped, as long as you did not force it on other people, and with that they stepped before the heart tree, and "Who comes before the old Gods?" A Child of the Forest asked.

"Yara Greyjoy, Lady of House Greyjoy of Pyke!" Yara replies.

"And who claims her?"

"Jon Stark, Prince of the North, and Winterfell, first of his name, and of the first men, and son of Theon 'The Hungry Wolf.' Stark." Jon answers.

With that Jon kisses Yara, and though she hated him now, and he knew it, but she had to admit he was a good kisser, but little did she know she would eventually fall for him, but after that he led her down below to where the men were feasting, but not all of course for after they had been married the Ironborn were lead back to their homes, and the ships set sail back to Salt Fortress, where Jon, and Yara would lead the army back to Winterfell to marry again, but it would be more of a formality for the bannermen, and the others to see that Jon was marrying a Greyjoy to ensure their loyalty to House Stark. "I am pleased to announce that the wedding between myself and Yara is a success, and with Yara, and myself will be off to my cabin, but I can assure you the marriage will be consummated, but before I do I need to talk to you, my men, and considering that," He turns to Yara and asks. "Yara can you please go to my chambers, my guards will escort you there." He then turns to his guards. "Make sure she stays there, until I return." He orders. "Of course, my prince." Guard 1 answered. With that the two Stark guards escorted Yara to Jon's quarters, after she left Jon turned to his men, and stated "That is it, we have finished ⅓ of what my father had planned, now all we must do is take the Riverlands, and the Vale. With that enjoy the feast, you've earned it." With that he left to his quarters, and when he got there the guards were standing there, and when he entered he saw Yara taking a bath, and as he approached the floor creaked, and she turned her head, and saw him just standing in the doorway, and asked. "Don't just stand admiring the view, come in, close the door." Jon steeped in, and started rubbing Yara's back and she moaned. "That feels so good."

"Yeah!" Jon stated, and with that he kissed Yara on the neck. She moaned. "You're trying to seduce me?"

"Maybe, is it working?" Jon asked.

"Maybe?" With that Jon looked into the eyes of Yara, and stated. "You have very beautiful eyes, you know?"

"I do, but I do have a question?"

With that Jon took his cloak, and armor off, but he kept his weapons close, and got into the tub with her and asked. "What is that?"

"Why'd you invade the Iron Islands?" Yara asked.

"We did it to prevent you from attacking us again, and we thought the best way to do so was to invade, and bring you into the fold, but it was for strategic value, as well." Jon responded.

"

"How so?" Yara asked.

"The Iron Islands can be used as a Naval base for the Western Northern Navy." Jon Responded.

"Good idea, but isn't there something we should do?" Yara stated questionly.

"Yes, but we can take it slow, can we not?" Jon asked.

"Hmm, perhaps, but…"

"You were hoping…" With that he dipped underneath the water, "What are you... oooooooohhhhhhh." Yara asked, but stopped, as Jon started licking at Yara's pussy, she starts moaning as he does so. He comes out of the water, and asks. "You like?"

"This I could get used to!" Yara responds.

"But we should get out, so I can properly please you." With that they got out of the bath, and went directly to the bed, and on top of the furs, Jon licked at Yara's pussy, and he got up, kissed her on the lips, and told her. "My men will look at the bed in the morning, which means we have to consummate the marriage." Jon told her sadly, already hating having to hurt her to do so, even though he would not change the fact that he is now married to her, besides, she is a fighter, not like those Southern cunts who believe it is against being a 'lady' to be able to fight, that is something he can never understand.

"Hmm, but I was enjoying it so much." Yara complains.

"Trust me, I know, but I must ask you, why are you not mad at me, and my men for taking your home, and forcing you to marry me?" Jon asked.

"OH trust me, I am, but I thought I would make the best out of the situation, and your people love you, but we Ironborn hate our lords, they are now greenlanders like you, but unlike you they treat us like their dogs, and meat to them to use in times of war, whereas you, your people thrive with plentiful food, water, shelter, the military you have, and the engineering, as well as the architectural projects, and yet you still have money to spend for luxuries." Yara responds.

"Unlike some houses in Westeros, we do not spend a lot of money on things that involve luxury, for who has time to do that if you are constantly building, and preparing for Winter." Jon counters.

"What do you have luxuries for? Yara asked.

"Hmm, a good question, but one of the things we do have time for is hard rompy sex." With that he kisses her on the lips.

"Well, we have a duty."

"Aye, and I hope that eventually we will fall in love." With that Yara kisses Jon, and he puts his cock near her special place, and he was about to drive into her.

(XXXX)

In the Vale, Lya Stark was leading a group of 100 men, along with her invading force on her flagship "The Northern Liberty with a fleet of of 75 frigates, and 150 longships transporting the invasion force of 30,000 men, 18,000 of her force went to the fingers to take Coldwater, and the Snakewoods, and eventually Strongsong, before meeting the other 12,000 would split in two, one going down near the Bay of Crabs, and take Rhunestone, Gulltown, Red Fort, Wickenden, and Saltpans before meeting up, and taking Eyrie alongside younger Brother Brandon, who led a force of 12,000 at the bloody gate, while the other would land in the Vale of Arryn taking Longbow Hall, and Herat's Home, before taking Old Anchor, and Iron oaks, before again meeting with the Brandon's force to help take the Bloody gate, and eventually the Eyrie. When Brandon got to the Bloody Gate, he saw it was a fortress, but he did not attack immediately, instead he waited until nightfall to really make his move, and send just a few men, because as a wise man once said, 'give me ten men, and I will impregnate the bitch' The bloody gate fell, in just one night, with very little casualties on the side of the Northern Army, and while this was going on, Lya was able to lead a group of 100 men to scale the mountain, and take the Eyrie from behind, so as to allow her Brother an easier time to take it, so the Valemen had to deal with not only the army at the front coming from the Bloody Gate, but the men from behind them, as well as the Invading force of Lya, who would be bolstering the troops under the command of Brandon, mostly from Iron Oaks, and those forces that were not at Iron Oaks, would be transported by ship to that location, where from there they would march towards the Bloody Gate before taking the Eyrie, but when they got to the castles no one was there, it turns out the Arryns had called the banners, so to speak, and were about to go to war with the Harrens of the Riverlands, so they did not expect to get the shock of their lives while holding quart to see a Northern Army outside their doors, the Starks had gotten there so fast. The Starks had gotten word from their spies, and Wargs the castles were going to take were empty, but they had not known it would be this soon, and once they had realize this, they decided to not keep the castles, or even take them in some cases, and went straight to the Eyrie, and with 60,000 soldiers men within a month they were still laying siege to it, and of the 45,000 Valemen, about, 10,000 men had been killed due to the constant bombardment, with an additional 20,000 civilians dying in the bombardment, but that is not the worst of it, for they had not been prepared for a prolonged siege, so they did not have enough food, for they had their food enroute when the North had attacked them, but the worst part was with the harvest taken by the North, they had not planted any new crops, and more soldiers, as well as civilians dying from bombardment, and hunger they had no choice, but to surrender, and with that 60,000 legionaries entered, and saw the condition of the people, and gave some food to them, and demanded they see the King of the Vale, and so they entered into the Throne room, and Lya ordered. "You will bend the knee, or my men, and my brother's will slowly kill all of your citizens one by one."

"They are starving, so I have little choice, but to accept" King Artys Arryn.

"Yes, and with that one of your sons will me, while one of your daughters marry my brother."

Women in the North were able to marry, and the husband not the wife would join under family's protection if it was her choice, and so with that Lya Stark married Robert Stark, while her brother married Alyssa Arryn, and she would become part of a cadet branch known as the Arstarks, and his seat would be in the Vale, after the war was over, but unlike her brother, Lya would become an Arryn, but only in name, for she not her husband would be the ruler of the Vale, after the war. By doing this now she had the full might of the Vale, but with 10,000 of the Vale army gone, and so with that fact, 18,000 originally was going to stay behind, but with the Vale lords now helping, Lya decided to have her brother stay with his army at the Eyrie, while taking all of the leftover Vale men of 35,000 along with the remaining 48,000 legionnaires, so with an army of 83,000, they marched towards the Riverlands, and after three days of marching down the high road, which had been built by House Arryn for easier access, they had reached,Harroway's town, and set up camp which included having a proper layout, which was a square, and had walls made of wood, a ditch, that had wooden pikes, caltrops, oil, it had tents set up, and at the center was Lya's and Roberts tent, and in it they were having a discussion, for you see, now they were married, and had consummated said marriage, Robert wanted to know if she would live with him or no?

"Yes, I will be living with you, but I have to have be the one making the ultimate decisions in quart, for my father will most likely force it upon us that I become the Wardness, and you the Warden, but he will make it so I am the one who is in charge."

"Well, do I have much of a choice?"

"You always do, but if you want to remain married to me, and keep your head, you will do this."

"Yes, but I believe the Vale will prosper even more if what I've seen up in the North. I am sure you already have plans on what to do with the Vale."

"Yes, but to be honest right now…" She got on top of him, both were naked, and she approached his big cock. "I want to have a little fun." She said seductively, whilst grabbing Robert's cock, and putting it inside her. "Really, and I would bet that you have plans?" Robert asked.

"Well, what do you think?" She asked sarcastically.

"Yes." With that he spun her over, so he was on top, and he started to have sex with his wife, and she moaned, while he grunted, and he stated. "So what are your plans for the Vale?" Her response was a look of 'Really? You're going to ask me that now?'

"Arrrgh." Robert groaned.

"Oh, oh, oh, oooooooooh, please f-f-fuck me." She moaned.

Robert did not have to be told twice, but little did they know Lya was in her most fertile time of the moon, and she already had sperm cells from Robert already trying to find her egg. So, with that they continued, and by the time Robert was ready to cum, Lya, had already done so twice, and she was getting ready for number three, and seeing he was getting close, Lya screamed. "You better cum in me, please." She pleaded.

"Did you not say you were in your most fertile time of moon?" he asked.

"Yes, so most likely I am already pregnant, but just in case, cum inside me again to ensure I do." So with that he came and she screamed. "YYYYYYEEEEESSSS!" When it was over, Robert rested beside Lya, and stated. "If you do get pregnant, I do not want you to fight." Lya got on top of him, and replied with. "I do not care what you think, I will fight, alongside my soldiers, so as to lead them." In response Robert flipped her over, and trying not to cry stated. "Look I think I have fallen for you, in fact I know I have, and I do not want to lose you especially if you get pregnant." Lya started to cry and asked. "Y-Y-You l-l-love m-m-me?" In response he nodded, and she kissed him, and stated. "I have felt the same way, ever since we first met."

"I have felt the same." He took his hand and took her dark brown hair, and placed it behind her ear, so as to move it out of her face, to look at her beautiful grey eyes. With that they did not have a lot of sleep, and the next morning she got up, and she was extremely sore, and she looked at her husband who was still asleep, and when he woke, he saw her looking at him, and stated. "Liking the view?" he asked.

"No, I'm lovin it." she replied.

"Oh, really?" With that he kissed her, and probably realizing she was sore, got up, and looked at the map. "I am looking at this map, and the only places to get into the Riverlands are from the Twins which has never been taken, or from the Vale."

"You do not know us Northmen, they said the Eyrie could not be taken, same for the Iron Islands, and yet we took it."

"Trust me, I may not know much about men of the North, but your women are something."

"What is that supposed to mean? I am the only Northern woman you've been with right?"

"Yes, but with what I have seen, and felt, I can guess what the other Northern women are like, from you." Lya blushes, and kisses Robert and replies with "I love you."

"I love you too, my sweet Lya."

With that they got up, and put on their armor, she wore a black armor with a grey direwolf on it, along with a wolf fur pelt, strapped by direwolf head clasps, with a black cloak with a direwolf on it, while Robert wore silver plate armor, with no sigil on it, but with a blue cloak, with also no sigil, and prepared themselves to get ready to march at a moment's notice. They got outside, and walked amongst their men, Lya was walking, and the men were restless, the Vale more so, than the Northern Legionaries, she was about to say something when one of the men, who was in charge of the Eagles, and he stated. "My princess, we have gotten a message from your father, apparently he has been slugging it out, and he has taken the Twins, Seagard, Oldstones, Fairmarket, and is laying siege to Riverrun."

"Good, Robert tell your men to get ready to march, we are going to take Saltpans, Lord Harroway's town, and Maidenpool, before meeting my father at Harrenhal."

With that the army started marching and they laid siege to Saltpans, and within a day, it had been taken, they left no soldiers alive and Robert told Lya. "I'll keep some of my men here at Saltpans."

"Yes, but only 3,000, ready the men we march to Maidenpool."

After two days of marching they had reached Maidenpool, and like Saltpans, the walls were breached within a couple of hours, and Lya was battling men let and right, killing all in her path, she looked around her, and saw many dead, most were those of the Riverlands, but there was one that stood in front of her, who was killing her men left and right, and when he saw her, he raised his axe, and with an overhead swing, tried to split her head, but unfortunately for him, she blocked it with her shield, and it got stuck in it, and she stabbed at him, but he dodged, and rolled grabbing a sword from one his fallen comrades, and stabbed, but it was blocked, and she would attack him, keeping him on the defensive, she was trying to find a vulnerability, which he did have, but it was a hard one, one he always tried to hide, but she saw it, as clear as day, and it was the fact that his right shoulder had a hitch to it, from an old injury that never fully healed. So, knowing this she blocked his blade with her shield, and stabbed him in the shoulder with a scream and an "arrrgh." He pushed her away, and tried to pull the sword out of his shoulder, but Lya got to him, grabbed her sword, and pushed it deeper into him, and shouted. "Surrender now, or you will join your people!"

"I will never surrender, but please do not harm my people?" He asked.

"I will not harm them." With that she uses her knee, and pulls her sword out of his shoulder, and swings it, decapitating him. At that she turns to the people of Maidenpool, and orders. "Stand down, your leader is dead, and for that you shall not be harmed, but continue, and I will kill every single man, woman, child, and babe!" Unfortunately, they decided not to surrender, and so "Kill them all!" She orders.

"You said you wouldn't harm his people?" Robert asked.

"I am not, and I gave them the option to surrender, besides I never said anything about my soldiers, or yours." Lya stated.

"I like it, and yet I do not, so after this we leave men here to defend this castle?" Robert asked.

"No. we do not, we must meet with my father and his legions, besides we will send for the 3,000 men we left at Saltpans to send 1,500 men to make sure rebels do not take it." Lya responded.

With that the siege of Maidenpool was over, and the next day they began marching to Harrenhal, and when they got there she could see her father already had laid siege to it, and the way he did it was, built a circumvallation, or a line of fortifications, built to besiege enemies. It was sixteen kilometers long, had 24 towers, and there were two of these, one to lay siege on Harrenhal, and the other to defend against any possible force, and with her force, as well as her father Theon, now they had over 140,000 soldiers besieging Harrenhall, which designers stated would need 1,000,000 soldiers to take it, but luckily for them Harrenhal was not finished yet, but nonetheless, they would use psychological warfare with using severed heads with a bit of a twist, they put poison that if gotten into the water or food supply would mean death within a week, and the only cure was two days ride from them, , and being besieged, people of Harrenhal could not get to it. Theon however, had gotten enough of the cure for his men to use, just in case, as well as for the people of Harrenhal if they ever surrender, and knowing this he went to the castle walls under a peace banner, and out of archery range, since the castle had no artillery, he told King Harren and yelled. "Surrender, and I will consider being merciful!"

"Ha, you do not have the men, so be my guess!"

"So be it." With Theon returned behind the fortifications, and with a "They've sealed their fate, unleash the poison." He orders to his second, who passed the word on, and shortly thereafter, the severed heads of prisoners inside them, were fired over the walls, and one of those few shots were lucky enough to land in the main well, for which the citizens got their water from, the poison spread like a plague, with nothing standing in its way.

Within a week, over half of all people of Harrenhal had succumbed to the poison, including King Harren himself, along with his wife, and all his family, from this day, House Harren would be no more, and along with house Harren went almost all the soldiers and flying with a peace banner, Theon approached the castle and stated. "Surrender now, I have the cure for your poison, no more people need to die!"

"You have a cure?"

"Yes, I do, I swear it!"

"Ok, open the gate!"

With that Harrenhal's gates opened, and once through Theon took no time in ordering the soldiers to pass the cure around, and when he approached the throne room, and was surprised none of the royal family was there, and when they saw his face one of the royal guards stated. "The entire royal family of Harrenhal is gone."

"That is too bad, we are going to have to have a new house rule from Harrenhal as my vassal of my kingdom, and I know exactly who to give it to, my youngest son Harren Stark."

"So, I am assuming you will be ruling over us? Well, it seems we have no choice."

With that Theon had taken Harrenhal without losing a single soldier in his army.

However Harren being only ten turning eleven in a couple weeks, so until he came of age, he would leave a man by the name of Theon Reed, who would act as regent of Harrenhal until Harren came of age, where he would then take the name Harren Harstark, starting a cadet branch of House Stark in the South.

(XXXX)

Within a month Theon returned to Winterfell having added three kingdoms, and the Iron Isles to House Stark's domain, he was content with what House Stark had, and in the Stark books, the one of Stark building plans, he planned to build roads, give Harrenhal a new look, with Direwolf Gargoyles, along with Winterfell, and all the castles in the domain of house Stark more defensive towers were added, along fixed artillery that included were the Giant Ballista, which had a slightly longer range than the Trebuchet, but by only 50 meters, the Polybolos, which was a Scorpio, but it could fire multiple bolts at the same time, the Bastion scorpio, which was a much larger version of the Scorpio, and lastly the Scorpio, the Giant Ballista stood on towers that were 20 meters wide, by 20 meters deep and at each of these, the artillery was not open to the enemy, but instead, a crenellation was added, but with an addition 3 meters of wall on top of it, so as to allow the Ballista to fire above it, and next to them would be towers that held the scorpios, and though they were just as wide, but they were only a quarter of the way deep, and once an enemy was close enough they would fire on the enemy, the castle walls were widened, as well as additional walls were added, and every castle became concentric castle, with Winterfell having seven walls, the tallest of which was 50 meters, but no matter the height, every single one of them was exactly 20 meters thick, as well as new walls, every castle had a moat added to all the castles, even there was already one there, around each wall of the castles, a moat was added, the gate houses were beefed up, so that every castle had a drawbridge, a gate, which opened inward made of Ironwood, and Northern steel that was three meters thick, and was six meters tall, it had three beams that were pushed by the towers on either side, and were made of Ironwood that was two meters thick, inside was three wooden Portcullis' interlaced with metal, and there was an inner gate that was two meters thick, but just as tall as the outer gate, all the drawbridges had the house's sigil on it made of Northern Steel, it was a piece of art, and depending on the sigil took anywhere between a week to almost a full year for each piece to be made. On top of this the gatehouse towers had openings on either side, and in the ceiling, where rocks, boiling oil was thrown or poured onto the attackers on top of arrows, and crossbows could be fired out of those same holes. On all the walls were crenellations where merlons came to well above head height, all of them had narrow slits on them so men would not have to show any body parts to fire arrows on the enemy, and to add additional range, and protection Stone hoardings were added to all castles, addition to it all the arrow slits in the Merlons, machicolations were added so when the enemy got close, the defenders could throw rocks, and shoot arrows down on the attackers trying to climb up the walls to take them, among other things. In the moat, there could not be water, for it would freeze during the Northern winter, so instead they dug a pit, put pikes in it, and because the walls were Concentric each wall was five meters taller than the last as you approach it, and walk towards the great keep, but even the smallest walls were no more than ten meters tall, with enough room to make them taller if the time came for it. On top of all this he ordered the construction of new roads, aqueducts, public baths, bathrooms, both public, used by the less fortunate, and private, for those with the means and funds for such privileges, sewers, and these sewers are cleaned daily, they do not just enter into the river, for the Northmen did not want the rivers to stink, or kill the animals for which they needed in order to survive, and so the wastes that go into the sewers are drained into a chamber where they are cleaned, and the poo separated, in order to fertilize the surrounding farms, it was considered a duty, and honor to do this, and even the Starks had to partake in it, so as to better understand the people they were ruling, all of these were built throughout the North, Riverlands, and the Vale. The last few things in this building project they built was schools, shops, public pools, mostly for the recreation of the people, to rest, and relax, especially after the harvest, the pools were heated by hot springs which were fed by the new aqueducts built from Winterfell, spas and baths were built in every Kingdom of the Winter Empire, and the spas were especially popular in the North, they built Amphitheaters, which were used for sports, and training of the army when they were not in use, more granaries were built, bridges, this was especially helpful in the Riverlands, but defensive walls made of stone around the Riverlands, it was called Theon's wall, was approximately 320 kilometers long, and it had a legion every 20 kilometers, and it was the length of Western, Southern and sections of the Eastern Riverlands that did not border with the Vale, and every 500 meters there was a tower about 30 meters high, with 27 or so meter towers on either side, 24 meter towers on either side of those, and so on until you got to a 18.29 meter tall tower, and each tower was 10 meters wide with a Trebuchet on the tallest tower, then Heavy Onager, Ballista, and Scorpions on the towers following, with a gate house, a bunch of crenellations around said towers, and along the main wall, which was 15.24 meters high, and with those crenellations came the merlons, basically the wall was built like the castles, and in addition to this there was a second wall in the works once they got the materials and the funds to do so, but this one had the defenses facing inwards, just in case an enemy got around, and tried to attack from behind. With that both Canals were upgraded, with the new roads being constructed, a new concept came about the North came up with, because with the likelihood of having to transport his soldiers in his armies as quickly as possible, and it was the highway, so it had to be very wide, wide enough for six wagons to be side by side with enough room for three men on horseback to ride side by side. The North built so much, and Theon and Bethany Bolton were very good rulers in their time, but they would never see these structures completed, for they would die, but as House Stark, and the Winter Empire were growing in power, money, and strength in terms of its armies, and Navy, another power who was also coming to, was starting to respect the Winter Empire, and they were the Valyrians, they considered the Winter Empire the closest thing to themselves, but not only that, but the time of the first men, and Godswood in Westeros was coming to an end, or at least four of them, for the Andals were coming, and so were the dragons.

 **Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, it was very long, but I would like a vote from you guys, I would like to know if you guys want to see the Starks get their own dragons either from the North, or from the Valyrians, please let me know in your comments. As always, I love your feedback, and I hope to have the next chapter up very soon.**

 **Freakdogsflare out.**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter III

 **Hey everyone, here is the new chapter, sorry for the long update, but wanted to make sure I got it right, but without further ado, here is the next chapter.**

Brandon Stark, called Bran, younger brother to Theon, he was seeing to construction of Theon's wall, or at least the last stages of it, when he heard it, the pounding, and drumming, once he heard it he ordered. "To arms!"

"In line men." His second ordered. With that the two legions formed up, the wolf guard forming the last line of defense. Over a hill 240,000 men came, with cavalry the likes of which the imperials' had never seen before, the horses had armor on them, and the men were not alone, they had banners of Durrandons, and the Gardners, along with the Andals.

"Sir, they are in range of the trebuchets." A soldier told Bran.

"We will wait, until they are all clustered together, and closer to ensure more hits." Bran ordered.

"But-" the soldier began.

"You do not attack at maximum range, for you may not hit the target as effectively if they were closer." He tells the soldier.

"How close?" The soldier asked.

"Until effective range close!" He yells, getting frustrated.

"Of course, my prince." Soldier says, realizing he had annoyed his prince.

With that they waited, and when the army led by warlord Argos Sevenstar who saw the army before him. "How pitiful, well once we've crushed them we shall wipe them out." he said.

With this the Andals continued marching, and when they had reached the effective range of the Trebuchets, Brandon ordered. "Fire, but only the Trebuchets!" The Trebuchets fired, and killed 30 men in a single salvo of just one Trebuchet, and with 20 of them, so in a single volley 600 men were killed, but they kept marching, and a minute later another 700 men were killed, a total of 3,000 died before the Heavy Onagers commenced fire killing an additional then came 6,000 men lost from the ballista, but the scorpios, so accurate were they, killed 12,000 men, and when the archers commenced fire they fired at the archers first, once the enemy archers were gone they switched from regular shot to heavy shot, and commenced firing on the combined infantry force of the andals, Reach, and Stormlands, but while the legions were attacking the Andal infantry, the Andal cavalry went around the finished part of the wall to the section that had not even begun, a section that was not defended by the legions, and attempted to attack from the rear, but they were peppered by arrows, but because the horses as well as the men armor the archers had to aim of the neck of the cavalrymen, and out of the 60,000 cavalrymen, only a third of them made it to the Stark line where they attempted to go around the pikes, and spears.

They could not survive for long if they did, but there was nowhere to go, and swordsmen of the Wolf Guard took out the cavalry while the pikes held them in place, but even though the Andal cav was gone, the front line of the legions was starting to break, and within an hour of being attacked they were killed, and with the remaining army the Andals attacked the wolf guard, who do no think they were going to die, they knew they were going to die, and they defended themselves to the last taking cuts, bruises, even after 20 sword hits the adrenaline drove them on, until the body could take no more. Brandon even joined his men, and killed men left and right that came at him, finally it came down to just ten men including him, and before long it was just him and his second standing back to back.

"Well, good day to die?" Jon Umber, younger brother to Lord Rickard Umber, son of Robert Umber, asked.

"Yes, it is, at least I died on the battlefield, unlike my brother." With that he killed an additional three men, before he heard Jon fall to the ground, and went into a frenzy when he saw his friend lying dead, he killed an additional three men, then he was stabbed by a spear in the gut, he stabbed the man holding it through the throat, stabbed by two swords, killed those men, stabbed by four more swords and two spears, killing the men who stabbed him, then he was stabbed by two pikes both in the lungs, he started to gasp for air, but a Reachman made the mistake of approaching him, he went to stab Bran, but was stabbed through the neck, with that Bran fell to his knees after three spears were thrown at him from behind, one went through his collarbone, another through his stomach, and the last one went through his calf. He dropped his sword, and pulled the spear out of his calf, and with it still in his hand dropped to his knees, he grabbed for his sword with his other hand, but someone attempted to grab it from him, but was stabbed by the spear through the eye, and the out other side. Argos approached, seeing Bran trying to reach for his sword, and asked. "May I get that for you?"

Bran nodded, gasping for air, and he couldn't even speak, but he had earned Argos' respect, who grabbed Bran's sword, and was shocked at how light it was, but he put it right in front of Bran who grabbed at Argos, but he dropped his hand and groaned. Argos unsheathed his sword, went to Bran, nodded his head, and in response Bran raised his head, and Argos beheaded him. When he had cleaned his sword, he turned to his second. "Send the bodies to House Stark, especially the man I just beheaded, but first clean the body."

"But-" The second started.

"Do not argue." Argos responded.

"He earned your respect?" Second asked.

"If even half the Starks are like this, we have already lost." Argos says.

"How so?" Second asked.

"How many men did we lose?" Argos asked.

"Oh, let me get the numbers, but it is not good." Second responded.

"Okay, thank you." Argos stated. A couple hours later the numbers were in, and it was not good, out of 12,000 legionnaires 11,750 were lost, and out of a combined force of 240,000 men, 210,000 had been killed, all the Stormmen, 90,000 of the Reachmen, and the rest were men of the Andals. It was a victory, but a costly one at that, the Stormlanders would take at least five years just to recover, and the Reachmen, two, but the Andals still had another 100,000 men, and the Lannisters could be called upon, who could raise 50,000 Westerlanders, and 10,000 sellswords, and the Reachmen still had another 10,000 men, but they would not leave the Reach, for fear of the Ironborn, or the Northern houses that were part of the Iron Islands.

(XXXX)

The rest of the remaining force retreated south, when they got back to Highgarden, when they entered, and another asked.

"Where are the other men?" Ser Gerold Grafton asked.

"Gone." Argos said.

"Gone? You had 240,000 men, how many did that heathen Stark have?" Gerold asked.

"Do not disrespect him, he fought hard, killed 1,000 of our men, he had 12,000 men." Argos states.

"What? 12,000 against 240,000, and you lost 210,000, that is the largest force we will be able to muster for two years." Gerold states.

"I know." Argos replies.

"Another thing, this was taken from Brandon Stark." Argos gave Brandon's sword to Gerold.

"His sword?" Urgo who had been listening, and the brother to Argos asked, but as he takes it, and feels it, he is shocked. "This is not regular steel." Urgo says, his eyes wide.

"I know, but I am going to send it to the Starks, so they can honor him." Argos tells him.

"But-" Urgo started.

"No, even if they are heathens, they proved themselves on the battlefield." Argos tells his brother.

With that Brandon, and his men's bodies were sent home where Jon saw his uncle's body, saw his wounds, and looked at the letter from Argos.

House Stark,

The war has begun, we attempted to take your brother by surprise, but he heard us coming, but he was anything, but surprised, and in the end he killed all but an eighth of my force, he himself killed 1,000 men. It does not change how I feel about the old gods, but your uncle has earned my respect, and if you and yours are even half the man he was, you will have no trouble earning mine.

From Andal Warlord Argos Sevenstar.

Jon put the letter down, looking at the survivors of the army and asked. "Is it true?"

"Yes, your uncle died with sword in hand, but he took a lot of thrusts, the ones that finally did him in were the pikes to the lungs, but we need to talk about their cavalry."

"And?" Jon asked.

"They bent over the horses, without even falling, their legs were supported, instead of dangling, and they gave the survivors some of their horses to ride, and they said 'It was the most comfortable ride they had ever been on.' Even those who had never ridden before felt like they had been doing it for years. They were able to save some of the saddles." A soldier said, grabbing one, he showed it to Jon, it was like their own, but with a big difference, it had stirrups for the riders feet, and it put the riders weight directly on the horses shoulders, and it allowed the rider to spend long hours riding without much discomfort, and it allowed them to bend over without fear of falling off said horse, and attack any person whether they be on foot, or on horse.

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With this it was decided to improve the legions, increase the number of men in each legion, from 6,000-10,000, 3,000 swords, 1,500 spears and pikes, 1,600 artillerymen manning a total of 160 artillery pieces, 40 trebuchets, 40 heavy Onagers, 40 Ballistae, and 40 scorpios, which were all increased in size, along with their fixed, and deployable artillery counterparts, 1,200 cavalry, and 1,200 skirmishers, with 1,000 of them being archers, the other 200 being javelinmen, and because of the increase of the number of men per legion the number of legions were decreased.

The number of ships, as they were increased in size, for they were decreased in number as well, and the longships were gotten rid of, as well as the war galleys, instead they were replaced by Brigantines which were much larger than longships and galleys, and these Brigantines had an outrigger on the port side. It had direwolf head as a figurehead, and two identical direwolf heads on the stern arching itself towards the bow, and the same thing was on the outrigger, except it was just one on the stern, but it still had a figurehead in the shape of a direwolf head, it had three masts, and it was made out of weirwood for the structure, the hull and masts were made of Ironwood, and it had metal laid into the hull as well as the masts. This particular upgrade was also added into the Frigates who also had metal added into certain parts of the hull, mostly under the waterline, and in the masts, and the stern, and bow, the weak parts of the ship.

The Frigates would have 500 men sailing her, and 400 men sailing the brigantines, and the transport ships would be able to transport 500 men as it was decided the Navy would be organized very similarly to the Army, with the Sea wolf guard being like the Wolf guard, but for the sea, and would only be used when the lord of Winterfell went by sea, the Sea wolves were the wolf legions for the sea, and the sea wolf reserve were the wolf legion auxiliaries whose name was changed to wolf reservists, and there would be a total of 2,000 ships, 1,000 Brigantines, and 1,000 Frigates totalling 900,000 men, that would be the max number of sailors, and the max number of soldiers would be 600,000 men, or 100 legions.

The horses were given armor, and the horses were bred to be bigger in the North to deal with the Northern winter, and in addition to this started to breed what would be called Draft horses to the current war horses, and what they got was a combination of speed, size, strength, and power that was unmatched by anything the south could bring. There were smaller horses that were used for scouts or for mounted archers, but the majority of the cavalry was the Shock cavalry, but the last change was the saddle which had stirrups added to it.

The final thing which changed for the legions was the armor, gone was the separate armors, and instead they decided to to combine the two armors together, and so the chest was white, but darkened until it got to the was area where it turned black, and the legs, arms, and the cloak were also black, there was a grey direwolf head on the chest, shoulders, forearms, leather straps that had a direwolf on them, their purpose was to hold the cloak on the back, and the cloak had a grey direwolf head on it, with a wolf pelt on it, and from now on all the soldiers of the North would wear similar armor, but the difference between the generals and soldiers was the colors were switched.

The final change was the armor of the sailors was that of a very strong leather armor, so strong was it, it could stop an arrow fired from a bow, or a crossbow, and it was black with a grey direwolf with only the captains or admirals being given cloaks, the difference was the spread eagle over the direwolf head represented a Captain, and one to five stars in the same area to represent the different ranks of Admiral. They wore metal helmets in the shape of the top of a direwolf head.

With their implements, the new Northern military did not meet the Andals for nearly two years, and within that time the new legions were put into play, the second as well as the last battle of the Andal invaders' attempt to claim the Winter Empire for the seven was at Theon's wall again. The Northern force being led by Jon "The breaker of the Seven." Stark led it with just six legions of the Wolf guard while Lya led an additional six legions that would flank around, and attack the Andals from the rear.

The Andals were taken by surprise, and when the battle was over 110,000 Andals lie dead, the other 10,000, those who were from Houses Gardner and Lannister were taken prisoner, and released, these included Jaime Lannister and Cley Gardner, said men were lucky, they got released, but the rest of the prisoners were unlucky, for by the end of the day, their bodies were left with not heads, their heads were put on spikes, which were then put on Theon's room, and along the border of the Empire.

Jon sailed to Andalos, and burned it to the ground, and while he did this his wife raided the Westerlands, and their brothers Harren and Brandon attacked the Reach, and the Stormlands, Yara, who was pregnant, but no one knew it, not even her, attacked Lannisport, as well as Casterly Rock quickly taking Lannisport, but the Rock, well they used a tactic as old as time, they laid siege, and waited until nightfall, and Yara led a team of ten over the walls, and secretly opened the gates to allow the armies through, this was made easy due to the fact the Lannisters, and their bannerman's army were all but destroyed at the battle of Theon's wall, and so she took the city, took all the gold that had already been mined, furniture, or anything else of value, there were not here to take the Westerlands, for they did not want it, so heavy with valuables they sailed North through the Winter Canal named so, because it passed by just South of Winterfell, and right next to Castle Cerwyn, once there they marched North to Winterfell with the gold, the same happened for Highgarden, and Storms End, and after two years of fighting and losing, Jaime Lannister, Cley Gardner, and Robert Durrandon met with Jon Stark to negotiate a peace treaty.

"Here are my terms, you will order the withdrawal of all your forces along my borde, and in turn you will send me a total of twenty chests full of gold, silver, and precious gems. If you do not we can continue the war, until your houses are all extinct." Jon stated. The other three lords knew they could not match against the imperial forces, and knowing thus responded with.

"We agree."

"Good, you have six months to deliver the chests to Riverrun." Jon states. With that Jon, and his army marched North, and at Theon's wall, they had gathered enough material for a second wall, and also enough to add gargoyles in the shape of Direwolves along the wall, with an added twist, one could fire an arrow from a bow or crossbow through the mouth of these things. He got to Riverrun, and gotten the chests, and marched North, but he made sure to leave sixteen legions on Theon's wall, they would be the southern watchmen. Once he got North, in Winterfell, he looked at a map of the lands beyond the wall, those around the fist of the first men, and built a fortress, to act as the first line of defense, he had ships built with battering rams, with added wood and metal, so as to help break ice.

(XXXX)

The entrances of both the Antler, and the Gorge, and wherever there were forks in the rivers he ordered massive Direwolf statues to be built, the front and back legs had chains to prevent anyone from passing through. It was built with magic, these wolves had sets of stairs where a team of ten guys manned the chains in the front and the back, the door leading to them was locked from the inside, there was always someone inside to let the next shift in, there was a small peep hole, so the person inside could see who it was, and along the stairs, four more doors, made of Ironwood, and Northern Steel had to be opened as well, and the last door, which led to the chain mechanism was locked, six guards stood at these doors, these guards were the only ones with the key, each door had a beam going across it, 100 archers defended the land, mostly from the dead, but the slits were so small, only the arrow could fit out of it, and they used crossbows, one aims and fires, using eye slits which had a 60 degree view, the other reloads, and the stones on the statues could not be touched by anything dead. An emergency exit was built in, and this one led to a door, which could be opened from the outside, for it had stairs, leading to it from the other side of the chains, which had a door, but the key was in the lord of Winterfell's solar in a drawer where only he or her and his or her heirs had a key to it.

The next thing Jon did was to have Winterfell, Moat Cailin, and all the major castles of the Winter empire rebuilt with Skagstone, which scholars had found was far stronger than any Granite, or any other stone in existance of Westeros and Essos. Winterfell was expanded from its current 24 acres to 50 acres, and the grounds on which Winterfell was built on would be flattened, and the walls would be increased to 150 feet for the outer walls 200 feet. Wintertown had five walls going from 100 to 140 feet, and there were plenty of sections where deployable artillery could be put, it would now be nigh on impossible to take. With the enlarged area inside Winterfell it allowed more significant changes on every building.

The first thing to be done was to flatten the land, and with the terrain even, the towers will all be equal in size, but it will also allow us to properly use every single part of the Winterfell grounds. Once the grounds were clear, at the very heart of the castle there will be five castles that form a large X facing the hunter's gate in the west and Wintertown in the east.

The four towers that make up the top and bottom of this formation will each be 350 feet in height and 300 feet in diameter, and the lord's tower will be 450 feet high, and 350 feet in diameter, and each tower would be connected by stone bridges, and each tower would have elevators powered by counterweights, and hydraulic power.

Moat Cailin will have 150-foot walls in height, the northernmost section of the moat will have three towers in a half circle and they will all be facing North. The middle part of the Moat will have three towers going in a straight line, and this is the section where the canal goes right through it, and so there would be a section of it where it would go through., and the southernmost section will also have three towers in a half circle same as the northern section, but this time it will face south.

The eight outer towers of the moat will each be 250 feet in height, and 150 feet in diameter, except for the center towers which were 300 feet in diameter to allow the 150 feet in width of the canal, and and they will all be connected by a circular bridge made of stone, that itself hangs 100 feet in the air. At the center will be the lord's tower, and it will be 300 feet in height and 200 feet in diameter. Against the North wall there will be five glass gardens, for the North had found the secret of producing glass from Jon's younger uncle Jon, which he was named after, who had found the secret of how to make glass, in a way that was not very expensive to do, especially since the North had the secret to make crucible steel, and could heat steel to 3,000 degrees fahrenheit. It was sand, heat up the silica in the sand to 3,090 degrees fahrenheit, it took a little tinkering, but it was able to be done, but the secret was only known to two other peoples, and they were the Valyrians, and the those of Myr, and as such the glass gardens along the north wall of the Moat.

That is where they will be the sole producers of cocoa and coffee beans in the North. Both are products that will be brought in from Yi-Ti and if I'm right about how to use them properly, they will also make the RedStarks extremely rich, and against the Eastern wall just south of where the canal goes through the Moat lies the godswood, and there will be five two-story stables, each one can easily hold 2,400 horses.

The bridges would be able to provide several snow and ice free walkways during the winter, and the bridges will be aesthetically pleasing, but at the same time it would also show a fraction of House Stark, and they will have glass panels on each side of them with about six feet of space between them, and they will be thick enough to be safe from anything getting through it, mostly it was a two inch thick piece of glass, enough to defend against arrows, and other projectiles, it would be heavily defended by stone on each side.

With the remainder of the space that we'll have available to us, seven two story stables will be built against the south-west wall, in total enough to hold 16,800 horses. Adjacent to it there will be a covered track, that will be used to exercises the horses during the winter, this would also be housed in all the keeps around the lands owned by house Stark, keeps that would be housing the legions.

In the south-east corner of the castle, a new Grand Hall was built. The three-story structure will have a roof made of glass and will be capable of holding fifteen hundred people on the ground floor and another five hundred each for the second and third stories. Directly above it will be room for a kitchen that's easily twice as big as the one Winterfell had before.

Against the North-east wall where the entrance to the family crypt is, he ordered a small garden to be built, one full of Winter Roses, Frostfires, Lady's Lace, and Nightshades, at the heart of which will be a small Septa, for those who worshipped the Seven, for he knew it was only a matter of time before their religion made its way into the Empire, and he did not mind the thought.

The next thing he had noticed was the Winter Canal had a major weakness, where it turned, and went to Torrhen's square, and so he built two sitting Direwolf statues on either side before the turn, this would prove useful as he also added an extension to the Winter Canal that went just outside of Winterfell, then turned to exit into the White knife, it was economically smart because some of the goods were heading to Winterfell, so to make it cheaper, and faster now that the canal was extended, and where it left the old canal, there were sitting Direwolf statues with chains coming out of them, they too were manned, but at the top a man could light a fire to signal if an attack was coming, but otherwise a ship had to keep on the right as they were traveling, so if they were going towards the east side of the North, they would travel on the right side, if one was looking at it from White Harbor, and if one is traveling towards White Harbor you would see them traveling on the left, and it would be the opposite way on the other side of the North, where it exited into the Blazewater Bay.

The wood that was used to set a fire was replaced, this was to avoid an attack another from happening without warning. In the Riverlands half of Theon's wall completed, the Northern half was just barely starting construction, as well as the sixteen castles going in. On the Iron Islands a massive naval base was built for the Western fleet to keep an eye on the Lannisters, while additional bases lite it were built on an island just off the coast of the Rills, Bear Island, Skagos, where the clans there had bent the knee to house Stark, Widow's Watch, on an island the size of portugal, called the the Blessed Island, and on Little Sister, the Fingers, at Rhunestone, and Wickenden.

These naval bases had those of the Navy, and their family living there, it was to allow the sailors to spend time with their families when they were not on any campaigns or out doing patrols. For this same reason army bases were built in the North, Vale, and the Riverlands along with housing was built, the navy was separated very similarly to the army, had the Sea Guards, Sea Wolves, and lastly the Sea wolf Reserve. It was felt the North had to defend itself against foreign invasion, and they needed a place for those in the military to be able to see their families, as well as a place for some rest and relaxation (R&R.)

Jon and Yara Stark would have seven children, Rickard, Theon, Torrhen, Arya, Lyanna, Asha, and Benjen, while Lya and Robert had four children Robb, Rickon, Brynden, and Alys, Brandon and Harren were to be married to a Karstark and Tully respectively.

However, the Valyrians had taken notice of all this, half the houses wanted to conquer the Empire, while the other half thought it could be more profitable to trade.

Their decision would decide the fate of Westeros. The last thing Jon and Yara did was create a new spy network which used greenseers, where they would use animals that no one would ever expect were spying on them, birds, bugs, such as insects, cats, dogs, horses, you name it, and because of this they had spied on their enemies, and see what they were up to, but sometimes they would see things they could not be unseen.

 **Please read and review, your comments are much appreciated. Apologies for the delay, and there will be an even bigger delay, for I am starting classes back up again, so I will try to get more chapters done more quickly, but no promises.**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter IV

 **Hey, sorry for the long update, but I am currently doing some classes, but I will try to get as many chapters as I can to you guys.**

Jon had spent seven years in White Harbor while his wife and sons ruled from Winterfell, the reason for this was to free the slaves, and to get all the architects, and engineers he had hired to come help build the North as well as the slaves he bought, which he then freed, once they got onto his shores. The construction was almost completed after seven years, the skag stone necessary for the upgrades was coming in throes to Winterfell, as well as to Moat Cailin, it was planned the rest of the major houses of the Empire would get the same upgrade, but it was felt it was more important to do Winterfell and Moat Cailin, next was the other Stark cadet castles first.

A bank, which was called Winterbank was also ordered to be built, and this would be the place where the starks would keep their gold, jewels, money, and any other sort of precious gems they had in their possession, and the tree industry came up with a new type of money, and that was paper money, and this paper was also put to use in writing, for messages, letters, and for school, for students to write on..

At all the castles in the Empire there would be proper plumbing, and instead of the garderobes, these were actual toilets made of porcelain, which would go down into the plumbing. This was largely due to the fact the Starks had made sure none of the workers working Winterfell, Moat Cailin, and the other keeps were allowed to work more than eight hours, which was broken up by two fifteen minute breaks, and an hour long lunch, they would then go home, rest, before coming back in the morning at the same time, but the work never stopped, except for a few days of the year, but other than that, the work was done 24/7.

There were three shifts, a morning shift, who would start at eight and end at five, an evening shift, which would start at two, and go until eleven, and lastly there was a graveyard shift which would start at elevenand end at eight, the two day shifts would overlap, for they could do more work during that time, and the night shift had two rely on candle light that went through glass to shine on the work area. Most of this part was just placing already cut stone into areas, there was to be no cutting of stone whatsoever at night.

Already he had plans for a keep near Sea dragon point, which was renamed sea wolf point, for the main reason as it was the main base of the sea wolves, it was where ships went to, to get their sea trials, before entering service into the Winter Navy. Sometimes it would be not much of a journey to get to their sea trials, for there were shipyards in the city, so to have the city defended, it was decided to build a keep, and it would be called Frostfangs Point. It would be given to Brandon Stark, who would start a cadet branch called the FrostStarks.

The last plan he had was to build schools, for both those who were of noble birth, and those who were just mere smallfolk, and everyone in the middle. The education would allow those who were not of noble birth to rise up, and serve, they can become nobles was another way a peasant could rise up in society besides the military, although the military was still considered a high honor. The Starks got advisors to help them rule, they were chosen based on merit, not of birth. He also improved the canals, changed all of the chain systems to be that of a direwolf, but with some of the more prominent kings of Winter shown discreetly in the face, but to the trained eye you could see human characteristics.

Jon also would improve the training of the North bringing in men from all over the Empire. The training would still be six months, but there would be more running, marching, most of it would be with bricks that was heavier than the actual equipment, and this was put on the shoulders of the soldiers, and the men training them would be those that were loyal, and had proved themselves on the battlefield, often times it was the non-commissioned officers who taught the enlisted men, but officers were taught by generals, or colonels.

The army had running, and fighting, and marching from sunup to sundown, this was what they would call physical training or PT for short, and the soldiers had to be able to run a mile and a half with full gear on in 15-20 minutes, 50 pushups with full gear on, and 100 situps or crunches, and lastly had to be able to do 20 pull ups. It was an extremely vigorous training that would take them through the swamps of the Neck, the rivers of the Riverlands, and the mountains of the North and the Vale, they would even train beyond the wall, all while carrying training versions of the equipment they would carry in the army, except these were 3 times heavier than the actual thing.

They also improved the hand to hand combat, so in case they were ever disarmed, they could survive without a weapon, and they were taught karate, taekwondo, kung-fu, or at least things that were very similar to it, but it was done in such a way that allowed the stature of those in the army, they had an average height of over six feet. It was so effective this was included into the extensive new training program.

The army would be decreased from 600,000 wolf legionaries to 400,000, and the wolf guard would decrease from 60,000 to 40,000 men, and the wolf auxiliary from 300,000 to 200,000. These numbers would remain as such until about the time the Valyrian doom, and years before Aegon's conquest when word reached Torrhen the Targaryens were getting prepared for an invasion of Westeros.

The number of legions on the walls would remain the same, and there would be legions stationed in each of the kingdoms, the Navy being stationed at the Iron Islands, the three sisters, Skagos, and the Blessed Island, and there were 500 longships and frigates at each of these four locations. However, sometimes there would only be 250 longships and frigates at the Blessed Isles, and the other locations, and this was because they would patrol their areas of their area of the Empire they were to patrol.

The Iron Islands patrolled the Moat Canal, and areas of the Riverlands, and parts of the North, that were not patrolled by the ships stationed at Bear Island. The west side of the Riverlands was patrolled by the navy section from the Blessed Isles who would stop at Gulltown, which they turned into an area of operations. Gulltown would become the third base of the Navy on the West coast. The rest of the ships of the Isles patrolled the lower end of the North, and the fingers, and upper sections of the Vale, whereas Skagos patrolled the upper section of the North. The other houses would help patrol their lands, or sections of the sea, but it was more local.

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In Valyria, an argument was taking place, it was whether or not to attack the North. Houses Targaryen, Belaerys, and Velaryon wanted to send emissaries to the Winter Empire to talk about possible trade agreements, non-aggression pact, and things along those lines.

They felt they could not get alliances and marriages would have to wait, while houses Celtigar Qoherys did not want this, but being lesser houses, their opinions did not have much say. Aegon Targaryen, Vanar Belaerys, and Rhaegar Velaryon, who were second sons to their fathers sent to Winterfell along with traders, blacksmiths, those who knew how to make Valyrian Steel, glass makers, so as to compare their glass with that of the Winter Empire, farmers, architects, for they wanted to compare Valyrian Architecture to that of Imperial Architecture. When they got to the entrance of the Winter Canal, in order to go to Winterfell, as it was the fastest route.

They were met by 20 frigates, and one of them came alongside them. Brandon FrostStark came down from the his ship, The Black Wolf, it was one of the fastest frigates the Winter Empire had produced, it had black sails, and its sides were painted black, even the glass, which was reinforced with black glass, she had four ballistas, and a bunch of scorpios along the side of her, one every two feet, some were even below decks, pointing outside the ship, so as to bring enemy ships alongside, but they were not used this time, as the Valyrians allowed them close, and when they saw Brandon, they respectively bowed.

"Stand up, I'll have none of that, I am not the king of Winter." Brandon told them. "Anyways, I am here to escort you through these waters." He told them.

Aegon Targaryen looked at Brandon. "We thank you."

Brandon looked at him. "Do not thank me yet." With that Brandon returns to his ship. When he got onboard, he said. "Do not go to full canvas, the Valyrians will never catch up, keep her with them." With that the Northern ships set up formation around the Valyrian ships, they were able to keep up, due to the North doing exactly as ordered.

The Valyrians sailed the Winter Canal, and with their Northern escort to keep a close eye on them, and to make sure they did not stray too far from the path they were on, and to prevent them from getting any ideas. When the Valyrians go to Wintercity, they saw construction going on it, and at Winterfell the construction was still going on, but to an architect's eyes, and engineers' eyes, they knew the said construction was almost done. The other Valyrians were shocked at the sight of it, and the smell, of oats and pines. A freshness, even they themselves could not get in their cities, yes they did not smell of piss and shit, but not as fresh as the city in front of them.

As they walked through they were shocked by all that was going on with the wolf guard, and some of the wolf legion, the blacksmith forging Northern Steel, and putting the Stark Direwolf emblem in them, it was called branding, it was so any of it sold, the people using them would know it was the Starks who made it. It was sort of a maker's mark, the shipbuilders upgrading, or repairing ships, the stables which housed the warhorses. They were then shown into the keep where Jon Stark was sitting on his throne.

"Your grace, my name is Aegon Targaryen, and these are my fellow lords Vanar Belaerys, and Rhaegar Velaryon." Aegon said, pointing to each of the men he had named.

"What do I owe the pleasure of Valyrians visiting my home." Jon replies, as he stands, and walks down the steps, and he looks at the Valyrians.

"We have come to propose a non-aggression pact, and if possible a trade agreement." Aegon says.

"Hmm, I would very much like that, let us hope these negotiations will lead to more in time." Jon says, looking at Aegon in his furs, and his crown with its nine bronze points in the shape of longswords,with a direwolf on the front of it, his grey eyes looking directly at the eyes of the Valyrians, trying to get the measure of them.

"So, do we, your grace." Aegon says.

"If it pleases you all, you are welcome to our greatest guest chambers, sup will be ready by nightfall." Jon tells the Valyrians in a calm, but confident tone of voice.

"Thank you, your grace." Aegon says.

"If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask." Jon tells them, as he begins to walk back up to his throne room.

"We will your grace." Aegon says.

For the next three months Jon and Lord Belaerys became fast friends, and the blacksmiths shared each other's methods to learn from each other, most importantly the Stark blacksmiths learned how to make Valyrian Steel, and surprisingly it was easy for the method to make it was the same as Northern Steel, but used dragon fire, or lava, which was even hotter than dragon fire. With this the Valyrian, and Northern blacksmiths combined their talents to combine Valyrian and Northern Steel, which were so evenly matched in almost every way except Valyrian Steel was lighter, but had the same strength. In a method called Damascus steel in which you combine two different steels together, and when they did, they came up with Northern Valyrian. The Starks used it in their armor, weapons, shields, and ships.

The next thing the Starks learned how to make concrete which they got from the Valyrians, and they found if you use steel and concrete, which became the main building material for small folk apartments in Wintercity, and other cities, and towns. With the Skag stone, and the concrete, the Starks would have a grand building project for the coming decades. This building project would include those buildings which were in disrepair, or in ruins, and these were perfect for Skag stone for the castles and cities of the knights, or even nobles, and concrete for the small folk apartments, and buildings, such as diners, blacksmiths, armorers, the theatres, inns, brothels, etc.

The last thing he would have built was an underground library beneath Winterfell, beneath its current library, the deeper you went, the older the knowledge, and it would be organized into fiction, and non-fiction. The fiction section would be organized into Science fiction, Satire, Drama, Action and Adventure, Romance, Mystery, Horror, series, trilogies, and fantasy. The non-fiction was organized into health, guide, travel, children's Religion, spirituality, and New Age, science, history, math, anthology, poetry, encyclopedias, dictionaries, art, cookbooks, diaries, journals, prayer books, biographies, autobiographies, self-help. The library would have a lower level, this level is where they would have all the fields of study in it. Examples of this would be Biology, anthropology, animal husbandry, paleontology, shipbuilding, blacksmithing, armorsmithing, history, mathematics, chemistry, materials science, physics, physical education, etc.

This is a tradition he would start, every king of Winter would start a building project or two in their rule, usually the beginning of it, or towards the end of it.

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For a thousand years the Starks and the Valyrians became great trade partners, and House Belaerys married into house Stark, but about four hundred years before the doom, a young Stark on the end of his campaign, Brandon Stark, met a group of runaway slaves wanting to have a new start at life, and as such runaway. Brandon Stark and his five legions met some 50,000 runaway slaves, little of whom were capable fighters, but they were no match for the Valyrians, as was proven in the battle they had just survived, they had little food and water, and they were being chased by the valyrian army which had ambushed them, they had little choice, but to flee.

They asked questions, and after a long discussion, Brandon agreed to escort them to a new home, realizing they had no food, or water, and as he was getting ready to march, he and his top generals heard the distinct sound of men marching.

"To arms!" Brandon yelled. With this, his entire army got into formation, with the ballista, and scorpios getting ready to fire on any dragons coming their way, when the Valyrians got there. There were sigils from two houses, the most prominent of which was house Targaryen. A battle line was formed, but half the artillery was looking above, so as to take down any dragons that might come there way. The Targaryens stopped, and let the dragons take care of the Starks, unfortunately it did not go as planned, for of the three dragons they sent, two were killed, and one was shot down, not able to fly for months.

With the dragons out of action, the Targaryens marched to the Starks, and when they met, the Starks held, their pikes piercing through the Targaryens, like a hot knife through butter, and with a constant barrage from Stark artillery, and their archers, the Targaryens and their allies were quickly losing ground. The Stark men were given the order to advance, and like a tank, a human tank, they took the remaining Targaryen soldiers, and turned them into corpses. A couple of Legionnaires had trouble keeping their footing, there was so many dead.

Another army, this included house Belaerys, and the rest of the Valyrian houses came over the hill, and when they saw what the Starks were doing, they immediately went in to stop both opposing armies.

After a long talk, it was agreed, the former slaves would form a new city, near the site of the very battle that helped them give their freedom, and they would form the city of Braavos.

For their troubles the Stark had gotten an account with what would later be known as the Iron Bank, they put in five million gold wolves, and that would double every five years.

It did not take long for House Stark and Belaerys to be friends once again, but the Targaryens would never forget what happened there, especially how easily the Starks were able to down their dragons, and kill two of them, in the process.

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The doom happened, but fortunately for House Belaerys and House Targaryen escaped the destruction of all the other houses, for house Targaryen had left the year before the doom, due to disagreements at court, others claimed it was self exile, but one thing is known, this survival would bring change to Westeros. House Belaerys had been attending a wedding of their daughter Viseny to the son of Brandon Stark, heir to Jon Stark, and Roslin Tully, but when they were feasting, word of the doom reached the lord of Winterfell, Rickard Stark, and he gets up from his chair.

"I hate to interrupt the pleasantries we are going through, but we just got word, Valyria is no more, the volcanoes destroyed it, all the houses except house Belaerys and house Targaryen are no more." Rickard says.

House Belaerys was so shocked, they could not say anything, Aegon Belaerys was crying, for his younger brother had been at the castle of house Belaerys when it was destroyed. He approached Rickard, and bent before said man. "I pledge me and mine to you, and all your descendents." With that house Belaerys became the bannerman of House Stark.

"We have a location that was recently found by one of your dragons, and our ships found it, but they were confused it had not been found, but they found out why, and the reason because of it, is the island, called the Hidden Isles, is surrounded by fog throughout all of winter, and most of summer unless the weather is really nice, it is called the Hidden Isles because of this." Rickard says. It was on this day, House Belaerys of Valyria was no more, it would be forever be known as House Belaerys of the Hidden Isles.

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When Brandon Stark came to power, he decided to improve his lands by first improving the army, so that that during a time of war a draft would be enacted and all lads, and ladies, between the ages of 13-24 had to have their names drawn, and they would join the Army or Navy, depending on the drawing. It was also decided that his children, and those children that are born of the lord of Winterfell, they would start to learn how to rule between 8-13, and how to fight, at 13, they would foster for a year at a house of their father's choosing, afterwards they would spend a year in the army or navy, and once they reach the age of 15, they are given 10,000 men, then they go on a 10 year campaign, with every two years being given 10,000 more men, but the max the heir can have is 50,000 men, the second born is 30,000, and each child after that can only have 20,000 men. However, if there are four children, usually two would go in the Navy, and two would go in the Army. For the Navy side, one would be given 100 frigates, or a combination of ships which added up to a total of 50,000 sailors, for the heir, or 60 frigates, or some combination to make a total of 30,000 sailors, and so on and so forth.

He also decided to make the Northern Valyrian Steel, and the Valyrian Steel, and sell them to other houses in Westeros, and Essos, for a price, and to raise money off of those who wished to hunt, and or fish, and this would create a new position of the King's advisors, and that was the head of the fish and game, whose job was to ensure everyone hunting and fishing was obeying the laws set out to ensure the assets of the Winter Empire's wildlife would be available to those of the future, and to prevent over hunting, due to the growing population of the Winter Empire, especially in the North. There were three levels of permits one could get, and depending on which level one choses determines what animal(s) one can hunt.

These levels are bronze, silver, and gold. Each level represented the type of coinage used to pay for say level of permits. The Bronze was for small game, which included squirrels, rabbits, weasels, mice, hares, foxes, pigeons, pheasants, small owls, Ravens, sparrows, and crows.

If you paid for a fishing license, you could have access to trouts, shellfish, such as oysters, clams, and cockles, and Jawless fish, such as Lampreys. If one was able to they would pay for both fishing and hunting licenses, so as to better feed their families.

The silver level allowed one to hunt eagles, falcons, hawks, large owls, for this purpose a list of owls was given to the hunter, in which they had to refer to in order to kill it, bears, deer, only stags, no females, Elk, mountain lion, wild boars, and wolves. A rule of hunting was you had to use everything on the animal. That meant one must use all the meat, skin, fur, you name it, even the bones. The fish for this level was Cave fish, Char, Cod, finger fish, flying fish, herring, ice fish, salmon, trout, otter, frog, sardines.

The gold level would allow you to hunt Mammoths, moose, lizard lions, shadowcats, snow bears, but the hunting of Direwolves was highly illegal, and so to was the killing of mammoths with collars, eagle, including sea eagle, vultures, lizard lions, crocodile. Domestic Mammoths would have a collar on them to let people know they were not wild, because otherwise there was no telling the difference, and to also tell people who owned them.

For the fish one was allowed to hunt Dolphins, eels, swordfish, seals, sea lions, squid, which includes Kraken, though not many were stupid enough to hunt them, sea dragons, Walruses, and whales, which included Grey Whales, Humpback, Leviathan, Narwhal, spotted whale, and white whale.

Along with this a couple of things changed for the military, and that was education, health plan, pension if they choose not to start their own house, and it would be given to them after sixteen years of service, and this was to give incentive for staying, as well as give a maximum time of forty years for anyone to serve in the military, by the time that would happen the person would be in their late 50s or early 60s, if they were any older, they would be told to retire, and they would be given a substantial sum of money, and men to start their own house.

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The North grew in both power, and money, with the Starks, Belaerys', Karstarks, Umbers, Boltons, Mormonts, Cerwyns, Glovers, Greystarks, Manderlys, Reeds, Wegs, Thenns, Riverstarks, Saltstarks, and Redstarks.

The **Mormonts** had become a rich house due to them developing what is called drydocks, and building ships in sections, like a puzzle, they were then connected together by steel nails, or rivets which was crucible steel, so it would never rust, it was the fastest way to build ships. With these drydocks it was easier for ships to be repaired, otherwise it would take them to be put on a beach, or on land, in order for them to get them. At first Bear Island was the only place where you could get repairs at a lower cost, but house Stark saw the advantage at having these throughout the entire empire, and ordered House Mormont to help build them at key locations, house Mormont at first did not want to have any other house have dry docks, but then they realized they could make more money by sharing this to the other houses near the canals, or the coasts, and by having a drydock(s) they could have water flow into the drydock to test the ship for leaks, and as such they made money off of building drydocks, and repairing ships, as well as building ships like a puzzle, or an assembly line, each person doing the same job.

House **Manderly** had taken up a location across the bank from White Harbor, and called it Greenhill Harbor, for it was built on sort of a hill, and it was green. They had come from the Reach, after the Gardeners had chased them out after a disagreement, and the Starks accepted them, and they could keep their faith of the seven, but they had to have a godswood for those worshippers of the old gods. They made their money off of trade, and they had silver mines in their kingdom, and beneath their respective castles.

House **Reed** , who policed the Southern Canal, near Moat Cailin, and had become rich through growing rice, a plant that grew well in the swamps of the neck. Rice could last for years, if stored correctly, and the only thing one needed to do was heat it through boiling it in water.

House **Weg** which was the giants, and although they could only muster 600 giants, each one was worth 10 men in terms of size and strength. Their sigil was a Giant with a crown on its head

House **Thenn** sigil was a yellow and red sun on a silver backgroundmade their money off of trade, leather, and they were also butchers, since they had once been known for their cannibalistic ways, they were forced to change, for cannibalism, like flaying was only allowed for prisoners of war, criminals who have committed crimes such as rape, murder, and other criminals like that. No one knew however, except those of the North, was they had stopped the tradition of eating other humans. They were one of five major houses in the North who made leather, and butchered the meat.

House **Belaerys,** their sigil was a blue dragon on a yellow background, and their words were Fly High. They were now the lords of the Hidden Isles, and they made their money off of mining gems, such as diamonds, dragonglass, building ships, most of the Western fleet was built here.

House **Karstark** had silver mines, and like house **Thenn** they made leather, and were butchers.

House **Bolton** were also the butchers of the North, and made leather armor. House Bolton along with house Thenn, were the ones who came up with the idea of barbecuing their meat, but they were known for using spices from Essos, whereas house Thenn was known for sweet juices, and alcohol to make their meat flavorful, in other words they use a brine.

House **Umber** were known for making their wool, and they are also known for barbecuing, but it was with sheep, and goats, and they used more of a dry rub.

House **Cerwyn** made their money off of trade, being near the oldest part of the Winter Canal. They were near the Wolfswood, and so they would trade wood, wool, leather, ice, which was put in special storage compartments on ships to help keep them cool, those would go, and they would bring in spices, and other things as well.

House **Glover** were rich due to making steel plows, and using drydocks to make ships, and they too traded ironwood, with other kingdoms of Westeros, and Essos.

House **Greystark** were started from bastards of House Stark made their money off of trade, and had silver mines. Their sigil was a white direwolf on a grey background

House **Riverstark** made their money off of tolls given to sailors, and their banner was a grey direwolf on a blue background, representing the river.

House **Saltstark** like the Riverstarks made their money off of tolls given to sailors, and like the Riverstarks the toll was not too high, just enough to give a form of taxation to allow ships to go through. Their sigil is a white direwolf on a field of blue.

House **Redstark** made their money off of tolls from both sailors, and people passing through Moat Cailin by land. Their sigil was a red direwolf on a field of grey.

House **Stark** made their money off of taxes, trade, mining of silver, and gems in the mountains, they had not done a complete survey of the North at all, and the last survey done of the North was when Brandon the Builder did one of his lands, but unfortunately he was only able to do a small portion of it, for he was not able to conquer the North, and unify the Northern houses under one banner. They were the richest and most powerful house in the North, and of the Winter Empire.

These fifteen houses are the richest in the North, and can muster up the most men, 6,000 if they needed to have them on top of the legions, and the auxiliary legions, which rarely if ever happened. The other houses did have men that would join the army, and by the end of their training their loyalties would be to House Stark, the Empire, the North, then finally their own houses they had come from. There were 173 houses in the North, and that did not include the 26 houses of the Vale, which includes the **Arrynstarks** , **Arryns** , **Royce** , **Waynwood** , **Hunter** , **Redfort** , **Belmore** , and **Templeton** , as well as the 12 houses in the Riverlands, which includes the **Harrstarks** , **Tullys** , **Freys** , **Blackwood** , **Bracken**. The Iron Islands had 36 houses, and they included **House Greyjoy** , **House Harlaw** , **House Blacktyde**. In total there were 247 houses which loyalties were solely to House Stark. These major houses of these other regions in the Winter Empire can muster 6,000 men.

The named houses are able to raise men each, 60 houses in the North, 8 houses in the Vale, 5 houses from the Riverlands, and none from the Iron Islands could muster 4,000 men. The rest of the houses including the houses named from the Iron Islands can muster 2,000 men. The rest of the houses from the Iron Islands could muster 1,000 men. In total 720,000 men could be mustered if needed, but with the Starks having an army of 400-600,000, and the men come from all corners of the Empire, and the Auxiliaries will usually be put in different areas, so as to learn a different section of it, but as they get older, and gain more experience they will more than likely be stationed near their home, but their loyalties are to House Stark first, the Empire, their kingdom, then their own houses, very similar to the Northern people who joined the army.

Like the Northerners, the rest of the soldiers, who were from the other kingdoms of the Empire were to be given new holdings, and a new house name so they could be made into landed knights, a minor house, or even a major house.

Three new songs were created for the Empire, two of them were for soldiers while they were marching.

A cold wind blows

A wolf's howl heard

The kings of ice now march

For blood of the first

And the gods of old

Shall find their gifts of blood

The fires shrink

And the night grows long

But still we come for you

For a cold wind blows

And a wolf's howls heard

Fear ye all for now you know

The wolves now hunt for you

Hail. The old gods

Hail. The old gods

A direwolf's howl a winter storm

Truen men shall remember home's warmth

Hail. The old gods

Hail. The old gods

Stabbing bastards. Bringing Justice. A woman's love. A son's life.

Marching wars marching home

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

The campaign may be long, but true men remember home

A storm will come to the enemy

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

The campaign may be long, but true men remember home

A storm will come to the enemy

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

Fighting and stabbing. Serving the direwolf

Direwolf's fang brings death to enemy

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

A direwolf's howl a Winter Storm

True men shall remember homes warmth.

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

A direwolf's howl a Winter Storm

True men shall remember homes warmth

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

No walls will withstand our wrath.

No army can withstand our might.

We play the drum of war

All shiver at our thunderous approach

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

When we come, the enemy cowers.

Our might is like a might direwolf.

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

Hail. The old gods.

A direwolf's howl a winter storm.

True men shall remember home's warmth.

These two songs were for soldiers, but the next one was a Stark song, but it was for the entire Empire, but it showed what the Starks motto was.

When winter comes  
When life is frozen  
When the moors they hide away under the snow

Fingers of doom  
Will clutch the chosen  
All beasts will shiver, from the lion to the crow

When winter comes  
When times are starkest  
When the wailing of the wolves fades with the sun  
The wilds are numb  
The days are darkest  
The fates of many cease to rest on

Walls will not hold the winter  
Over and under crawl  
Walls will not hold the winter  
All in the way will fall

When winter comes  
When thrones are idol  
When the brave they cower under eyes of blue  
The rising roar  
The endless cycle  
Turns the darkest myths of yesterday to truth

Walls will not hold the winter  
Over and under crawl  
Walls will not hold the winter  
All in the way will fall

Walls will not hold the winter  
Over and under crawl  
Walls will not hold the winter  
All in the way will fall

(XXXX)

The Starks for the next 100 years consolidated their power, and made plans to invade the other kingdoms, to add them to their Empire, but it would take all of those years just to get the planning and logistics together.

The first thing they needed to do was to improve the roads, which was expanding them to allow for more carriages to travel side by side with each other, and so it went from being two-three carriages wide, to being ten carriages wide, five going one way, and five going the other, this was done, because it had gotten to the point where the amount of traffic going in and out of the Empire so much where if they did a slight improvement of just doing five carriages wide, they would have to expand it again in 50 years. That was an expense they felt would be unnecessary, and as such they decided to go ahead with building this huge construction project.

The plan was to have two sets of main highways, which they would call the Winter Highway, and it would have the designation of W-1, or W-2, or some other numbers, even numbers meant that particular road went from West to East, or vice versa, then the odd numbers would be going from North to South, or vice versa.

This was not the only project going on, the next one was to upgrade Theon's Wall, and repair it. Upgrades would include new artillery, new machicolations, new merlons, embrasures, they made the walls even higher, which would be 150 feet high, for the outer walls, and 200 feet for the inner walls, the highest towers on the outer walls would be 190 feet tall, with the shortest being 160 feet, and it being a tier system, gradually getting higher from the walls to the tallest towers where the trebuchets were, two towers would hold Scorpios, two for the Ballistae, two for the heavy onagers, and the last tower for the trebuchet. The distance between the towers was changed from 1640.42 feet to every 500 feet, that was from the last tower to the first tower of the next. The number of walls was increased from two to four, and as such, parts of the old way had to be demolished during construction, and it was all made of Skag Stone, a material the Starks had used in their own castles, and as such they ended using it on Theon's Wall. These upgrades, and changes to the Winter Empire were meant to prepare the North for an invasion of the other four Kingdoms, but little did the Empire, and the rest of the kingdoms know, it would never come to pass.

 **Please read and review, it is very appreciated when you guys do that. I hope you guys loved this story, and please tell me what you think.**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter V

 **I like your reviews, and I hope you love this next part.**

The years leading up to Aegon's Conquest Torrhen's father had created a small council. There was the High Chancellor, who was the head of the small council, he was the King's proxy during his absence. The Lord Marshal was the Chief Military Officer, supervising the Imperial Army and coordinating the realm's land-based defenses. Lord Admiral, was a position held by the Chief Naval Officer (CNO), supervisor of the Imperial Navy, and coordinating the Empire's maritime defenses. The High Constable, who was the chief legal advisor, managed the dungeons and supervises law enforcement. The Grand Scholar was the head of the Scholar order and chief healer to the royal family. The last two positions were the Master of Shadows, who was the Chief Intelligence advisor and spy/assassin master, and overseer of covert activities and information gathering, and the last position was the Lord High Protector. This position was the Title of the regent of an underage King or Queen, and for this reason, the post was only temporary. All of these posts were given to Starks or extremely loyal Stark bannermen. When Torrhen's father was close to dying, he ordered a substantial building project, which included putting bridges over certain rivers to make travel throughout the North more accessible. The bridges were made to be the same width as the roads, and the roads were extended from the North to the Riverlands, the Vale, and roads were built on the Iron Islands. The roads on the Iron Islands were only connected to ones on that Island, there was not a way the Islands could be connected to each other by roads, or at least within the financial means of the Empire. This extensive building project was begun for the same reason as the others in preparation for the conquest of Winter.

Torrhen came to the Winter Throne in 7,695 years after the long night (A.L.N.). He immediately began to ensure the Winter Army, being about 600,000 strong to prepare for the Winter conquest, but he was interrupted by a scout and a warg who had gotten word the Targaryens had landed just a few miles south of Theon's Wall, the section which bordered the Stormlands. Torrhen sent his son Rickard, who had just returned from a campaign in Essos, south to Theon's Wall to reinforce the men already stationed along the Stormland border, while at the same time doing the same for the Wall that bordered the Reach and Westerlands.

Rickard began marching south when he got word of the Targaryens moving on Theon's Wall, which he felt was unwise for the other Kingdoms, and houses did not know how to deal with dragons. The only two houses that knew how to deal with the dragons was House Stark, and those loyal to them in the Winter Empire, and House Martell and those in Dorne Loyal to them. Already he was thinking of what he was going to do when he had to go against Aegon and his two sisters, one of which he knew Aegon was married to, Rhaenys, he had heard of Visenya and her dragon Vhagar. He had to be honest with himself, if he met her, he would be speechless.

Meanwhile, with Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys, they were in the command tent. "We are going to attack the Winter Empire first," Aegon tells his sisters. Rhaenys thought it would be easy to take them out, but Visenya was wary, and with that thought, she told him. "I do not think that is wise, I believe we should take care of the other kingdoms first," Visenya says. "Again, as usual, you are too cautious," Rhaenys says. "I hate to agree with her, but Rhaenys is right," Aegon says. Visenya wanted to argue but knew it was pointless, and the Targaryen army began marching to Theon's wall when they got there Rickard's army was two days march from them. Aegon and his sisters used the dragons to attempt to get through the wall with no Targaryen casualties. This was a good plan, but it was thwarted though, by the Scorpio and ballista, they were forced to land and try again the next day meanwhile, the Targaryen army had started to lay siege to it. For two days the dragons attempted to take out Theon's wall, but the magic which was put into its walls and foundations, along with the Skag stone which the walls were constructed of, could not be burned or melted through. The Ballistae and Scorpios were fired on the dragons, most of them missed but on this day it was different. Rickard hit Vhagar in the chest and shoulder, he crash-landed extremely rough, and Visenya tried to take one of the bolts out, but she heard men on horseback approaching. She saw one man with a silverish crown approach and pushed her out of the way, and grabbed the bolt and pulled it out with one arm, and he did this with the others except the last which he had to use both arms to pull it out. "We take no prisoners." Rickard orders, and with that Visenya's men are killed, while he took her to his tent to check her for injuries. Vhagar was taken to an enclosure big enough for her to roam around in, but not by much. Visenya, however, was not going willingly, and when he got to his tent, she tried to kill him with her short sword, but it was blocked by Rickard's knife and threw her blade out of her hands, then pushed her against a pole, and held her there with his forearm on her chest. She looked into his eyes and saw a fire there, a fire which was only be found in those who had the blood of Valyria in them. She had to admit he was cute, but she could not believe he was a good person after what he did to her dragon, and her men.

"What are you waiting for?! Kill me!" Visenya questioned him.

"Why would I do that? Especially when you could bring such a big ransom in your trade to your brother and sister." Rickard replies.

Visenya cannot believe this and knees him in the nuts, and Rickard is unphased, he grabs her and throws her in the cells which are nearby, but afterward, he grabs a hold of his nuts, and when he gets back in his tent he drops onto his knees and just rolls around for a while. This continues for two months, him bringing her to his tent for questioning, this starts to change when Visenya and Rickard start spending all the time together, and for the next year as the Targaryen army starts to give up on the siege, and take the other kingdoms. Aegon knew Visenya was a prisoner, he and Rhaenys had seen her get shot down along with her men being kill, but there was nothing they could do. The war went on for another six months, Visenya had fallen for Rickard, but the Targaryens and Starks are tired of war. Torrhen Star's reasoning, all but five of the Arrynstarks have been killed, those that survived were boys and girls, even Torrhen's own wife, who was also an Arrynstark, did not survive. She was stabbed twenty times, historians would compare her death to Brandon Stark's death during the Andal invasion. There had been too much bloodshed Torrhen Stark thought, and for what? No ground had been lost or taken from the Targaryens.

Aegon was flying Balerion the Dread when his dragon was hit by a bolt shot from a scorpion. His dragon landed badly, and while Aegon was unconscious Torrhen attacked Balerion, but as he was about to deliver the killing blow Aegon blocked it. They fought on top of the dragon, but it was apparent Torrhen was slightly better than Aegon. Torrhen knocked Aegon to the ground, but just as he was about to deliver the killing blow Balerion attempted to fire at him, but Torrhen rolled out of the way, and put a knife to Aegon's throat. This stopped Balerion in his fire breathing. Torrhen Stark's army had killed thousands of men, Aegon along with his vassal lords were dragged in front of Torrhen Stark on their knees. Rickard Stark came from behind on his horse, followed by Visenya, who held Rickard's hands when they reached Aegon.

"By the time they realized what was happening it was already too late." Torrhen steps forward.

"Aegon and Rhaenys Targaryen, you and yours must leave Westeros, and never return. If you do, I will kill you. The rest of you, Lord Lannister, Lord Tyrell, you will bend the knee to House Stark. Lord Baratheon, you have two options, leave with your half-brother or bend the knee." Torrhen states, as Rickard gives Ice to his father.

"What about our sister?" Rhaenys asked.

"I am going to stay with the love of my life." Visenya states as she leans into into Rickard.

Aegon looked at Torrhen and states. "We will return to Dragonstone-"

"No, I mean go back to Essos, from which you came." Torrhen states. With this, Aegon along with Rhaenys gather what is left of their men and head to Dragonstone, and from there to Essos.

"What are we going to do with Dragonstone?" Viserys asked.

"Give it to my younger brother and he can start a new cadet branch called the Drakestarks. What worries me is what are we going to use as our new capitol?" Rickard says.

"We will still use Winterfell, but we will put a new castle and city where Aegon had landed, we shall call the castle the Grey Keep, and the city Grey Harbor. It will be the home of the WhiteStarks. Any ideas what to do, what plans we got?" Torrhen asked.

"Well, if it is going to be the next Stark holdfast of Westeros, we are going to need to have sewers, I do not want it to smell like shit and piss. We will need shipyards, barracks, city watch, drydocks. I say the castle will have nine towers three making a half circle facing to the South, and three making a half circle facing to the North, while the three in the middle will be in a straight line. The outer eight towers will be three hundred feet in height while the lord's tower will be four hundred feet in height. The outer walls will be one hundred and fifty feet in height while the inner walls will be two hundred and fifty feet in height. The walls will have guard towers that will be fifty feet taller than the walls they are on, and there will be sections on the wall where artillery will be placed to defend the city and Blackwater Bay from attack. There will be three two story stables enough to house fifteen hundred horses each.

A great hall which will have three stories, the first story will be able to house two thousand lords and ladies, with room to house five hundred on each of the consecutive floors above. The lord's room will have a chair made out of weirwood with direwolves carved into it. One hundred and fifty feet above the courtyard of the castle, there will be bridges built connecting the towers together, and at each tower there will be three elevators with levers leading to each floor. The city's outer walls will be fifty feet with seventy-foot guard towers at intervals, and there will be artillery emplacements on top of these towers as well and Scorpio emplacements between them. There will be five walls before you reach the Grey Keep, each will be twenty feet higher than the last, with towers being twenty feet higher than the walls. Public bath houses, Coliseums, Aqueducts will be built throughout the city as well. The houses of the common folk and the middle classes were built of concrete. With this in mind the Starks hired men and women to build the new holdfast, for House Whitestark. When it was done the Starks called upon all the lords and Ladies of Westeros to come to Winterfell to bend the knee or swear fealty to the Starks.

All the houses except those of Dorne came and did exactly that. Torrhen was sixty when he marched south to Dorne, he did not take the castles, he burned them to the ground, he killed women, children, men, babe, everyone until the Martells were forced on their knees, Torrhen's second son married the eldest daughter of the Prince of Sunspear. The Martells hated what Torrhen did, but what shocked them was what he did next, which was rebuild the castles he had burnt. He died when he was eighty-nine. Rickard and Visenya would have six children, Brandon, Lya, Benjen, Dacey, Eddard, and Torrhen. Rickard's second brother Ned took the name Drakestark and built a good majority of the Imperial ships. The Starks spent the next one hundred- and twenty-nine-years building roads, adding moats around all the Stark keeps, Theon's Wall, The Wall, and improved the military. The military would now include all of the Kingdoms and Isles. Each Kingdom would have at least five legions to protect it except Dragonstone and the Iron Islands which each only had one.

During that time the scholars replaced Maesters and schools were built in all the Kingdoms, soon the Kingdoms were no longer being referred to as the seven Kingdoms, but as the Kingdom of Winter. The education of not just the nobility, but of everyone would see a technological leap. So many Kingdoms were there the Starks decided to create six new houses to act as Governors in their name of their King of the Winter except in the case of the Sandstarks who would become the High Protectors of Dorne. House Martell is the only house in Westeros that still controls its ancestors' lands as rulers, house Sunstark only serve as an Imperial presence, so as to ensure the loyalty of the region. Weirstark of Weirwoold Grove became Governors of the Reach. The Lanstarks of the Wolf Canyon became the Governors of the Westerlands. The Dunstarks of Thunder Den became the Governors of the Stormlands. The Drakestarks of Dragonstone become the Governors of the Coastlands. The Whitestarks of Grey Harbor become Masters of the newest city in Westeros, this house is founded from members of House GReystark of White Harbor. Their new name and the name of their new seat pays tribute to their ancestors.

Torrhen started the construction of chains to come out of Direwolf towers at every city, port or sea entrance, but it was not finished before his death in the year forty AC. His son Rickard took over, and began a building project so large that when he was in his eighties it was still not finished. The Starks had started going through an Industrialization period, it was slow, but they had developed steam engines, found a way to mass produce steel and iron cheaply. Because of this the ships were changed from Longships and Frigates to have metal in their sides, the ships were still powered by sail. Advances in mining and Metallurgy allowed the mines to produce more refined metals than ever before, buildings that were built during this time were blast furnaces, finery forges, slitting mills, smelting mills. On top of these new technologies were brought about included the printing press, and the nautical compass.

An invention that allowed for better mills was the crank and connecting rod, a mariner's astrolabe, something that measures latitude of where a ship is, and the dry docks were improved even more to allow for metal ships to be built, but one thing which was added was the floating dock, and the lifting tower was invented, it allowed for heavier blocks of skag stone which were the building blocks of all castles and cities. However, for the lowest buildings like peasant housing was made out of concrete and Northern Steel, which the Starks knew made the concrete to the printing press, the newspaper was created, it allowed the people of Westeros, both highborn and low to know what was going on, not only in the Winter Kingdom, but in Essos and beyond the wall as well. The best technology, which was brought about was the pile driver, this was especially put to use when new bridges and foundations of buildings. Rickard also looked at the weapons and armor of the army and realized he needed to change them, and give them a complete overhaul.

He decided to change the armor to three kinds, linothorax in hot climates like Dorne, plate armor without fur linings for more neutral climates, and lastly plate armor with leather and fur linings in them for when it is winter or close to the arctic conditions. Rickard had the swords used by the swordsmen changed in such a way the crossguard had direwolves made of Ironwood, and the swords were all the same length; The spears were replaced with Halberds, and as such the spearmen became Halberiersmen. The pikes got no change, but the plate armor got changes, it remained the black and white, but with the cloak it became grey for the Winterguard and for the Kingsguard, on the grey cloak they had a gold direwolf on it. The Cavalry was improved to Cuirassiers, they wore plate armor, and their horses wore armor as well, they carry lances and swords into battle, they are considered Heavy Shock Cavalry.

Rickard ordered Weirwood trees be planted all across the Winter Empire, and Ironwood trees were planted in areas they set aside specifically for trees to be used in ships, to prepare for the fleets size increase the Starks knew they were going to go through. The Lannisters, Redwyne fleets were added to the Winter fleet. He also ordered the standing army to increase from 600,000 to 1,200,000, but he ordered at the most to train 5,000 per year, but by doing this he knew this would take one hundred and twenty years to train so many men, and the Navy would go from two thousand to four thousand ships. The last thing he would have commision was new roads. The Starks are ruthless to a fault, but they also know when to reign it in.

It was the year 129 AC, in Essos, the Targaryens were going through the Dance of Dragons, the Starks was dealing with its own problems. Cregan Stark was walking the battlements of Winterfell when he heard an explosion. He and some of his guards ran to where said explosion had come from, and when he got there a man who had what appeared to be a black powdery substance all over his face. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Apologies, your grace. I was testing a new substance I created and was testing it, but as you can see it got a little out of hand."

"A little? There is a hole in the wall."

"Yes, well, I can show you how it works." A scientist says, as he shows him how it works. "Now, militarily it can be used like so." He then shows him how. When Cregan sees it, he looks at the scientist or inventor. "Whatever you need, ask these men for it, but first we must get you a new place for your inventions away from these walls. Make sure he gets a new place, and get someone to fix the wall." Cregan states, and with that he leaves the inventor to go about his work, and within ten years it was implemented into new weapons for the Empire. Cannons, mortars, rockets, muskets, rifles, pistols, all of these were created, and with-it new buildings were brought as well as new ships. Cregan Stark ordered the military to be reorganized, and it went like so. The infantry was replaced with Line Infantry, the Cavalry were replaced with Dragoons, this included the general's bodyguard, the skirmishers were replaced with Rangers; the Artillery was replaced with mortars, twelve-pounder cannons, along with horse drawn six-pounder gun, and twenty-four-pounder gun. All Legions except the Wolf Guard were given two thousand Guardsmen, they were the elite unit in the infantry, the Wolf Guard was renamed the Imperial Guard.

The Imperial Guard was organized into the Winter Guards, the infantry of the Imperial Guard, the Wolf Guard serves as the Cavalry of the Imperial guard and as such makes the second largest force of it. The White Guards are the elites of the Imperial Guard handpicked from the Winter Guards, Wolf Guards, they are the only soldiers allowed to wear pure white uniforms instead of the standard issue dark grey. They act as the kingsguard, and there are seven regiments, and the White Guardsmen/Women are allowed to get married and start families. These were not the only changes the Starks made to their military, they also changed the Navy, which now had four hundred heavies first and first rates, twelve hundred second and third rates, and four hundred fourth and fifth rates. The fifth rates were heavy frigates, which were similar to what the North already had, but they were given gun ports. The North dismantled the longships and used the wood from them to build the new ships, for they felt it would be a waste if they did not do so, it also saved many trees, which is something the Starks wanted to continue to do as per their agreement to the Children of the Forest. The North kept these advances extremely secretive from the people of Essos and the Targaryens. The rest of the world would soon feel the wrath of Winter.


End file.
